Equestria Girls: Cars, Corpses, and Capitalism
by Tekket
Summary: This time it's the Mane 7 (Including SciTwi and Sunset Shimmer) who find themselves in a new world which they must find a way to live in, if they are ever to get back to their old lives at Canterlot High... (This Fanfic Takes place after Equestria Girls: Friendship Games) Warning: Contains scenes of violence and strong language is present throughout.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One:

Dangerous Encounter (Aka Fateful Meeting)

The massive, articulated bus lumbered down the cracked road, while the single occupant blasted swing music from its modified speakers. The hot sun beating down in the area meant that the windows had to be open, exposing gaps in the vehicles heavy, bolted-on armor. As he was driving down the crumbling, dusty highway, the driver of the long bus saw a flash near an outcropping of rock that was a few klicks down the road. Realizing it could be a potential threat, he unlocked the safeties of the anti-personnel weapons that were installed in the sides of the bus.

Having misjudged the distance, it took the bus about a half hour to reach the rocks by the side of the road, which turned out to be cliffs several stories high. As both the bus and its driver neared a bend in the road, the driver saw a figure standing beside the road and waving its arms in the air. Slowing down cautiously to a stop, the articulated bus came to stop a few meters from the figure, which turned out to be a young woman with blazing red-and-yellow hair. Getting a good look at the bus for the first time made her take a few steps back.

The machine may have originally been a public bus, but it had since been converted into a mobile fortress, with extra metal plates bolted onto the vehicles body, and metal bars and plates welded over the windows. Several tripod-mounted machine guns stood out on the bus's roof, and several tarps, boxes and bags were fastened to the roof and were kept from falling off the sides by way of a low, long, fence-like structure running along the sides of each segment. Large, horizontal tubes hung off the sides of the frame in heavily armored places, while small slots all around the bus had what looked like short gun barrels sticking out of them. The front of the vehicle held a massive v-plow that had metal spikes welded onto the edges, facing outward, and the wheels had large, circular pieces of metal covering them with more metal spikes sticking out all over them. With ropes and strings and chains holding random containers and bits of metal all over the place, and everything painted over in a dull grey color, the bus looked like someone had tried take a machine that was meant for the scrapyard and turn it into one instead.

Sunset took this all in within a few seconds as the bus rolled to a stop and the door nearest the front opened and a tall, thin figure in completely grey attire (which included a long grey overcoat and a large grey hat to top it off) showed itself at the entrance. The stranger wore a gas mask over his face, so she couldn't see its features, but its intention was clear; the figure was holding a large pistol that was not-quite pointed in her direction. Taking a few steps back, her mind started racing, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to try to get a ride to civilization from it. It certainly would be safer to walk, but neither her nor her friends had any water, it was a hot, dry day, they had no idea where they were, and the only shade for kilometers around were the rocky cliffs they had found themselves by.

Weighing her options, she decided to take a tentative step towards the stranger. When nothing happened, she took a few more, until she was only about six feet from him.

"Hi," she started, "I know you seem kind of busy, but I was wondering if you could help me out."

After she got no response from the grey person, she decided it was safe to continue.

"See, me and my friends got lost out here and we don't know how to get home, do you think you could help us?"

At this the figure finally spoke, and the voice was that of a guy's.

"Lost? How? Where on earth did you come from that managed to get all the way to this place by yourself? There's nothing around for miles!"

"Well, actually it's a long story, and you probably wouldn't believe me anyway, but I just want to know where we are and how we can get back home."

"Where you are is in the middle of the Wasteland, about three hundred klicks west of Crevice, and just outside of Dragbast's territory. As for how you get home, I don't know where you live, and I don't wanna know."

The man's answer didn't help Sunset at all, but she was starting to get a suspicious feeling of what had happened.

"I've never heard of either of those places. Do you know where Canterlot City is?"

To this the man just stared at her. Then, after a long pause where it was obvious that Sunset was still waiting for an answer, he said, "No. I don't know where that is, in fact that's a place that _I've_ never heard of. And I know everything around the Wasteland."

"Hey, um, if it's okay with you, do you mind putting the gun away?" Sunset said while giving her friendliest smile.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not until I know who it is that's asking for my help and where they want me to take them. You've already said that you're with friends, but I don't know how many, and I don't see anyone else here besides you. Why should I believe you?"

"Umm, because you're nice and friendly, and they're just on the other side of these rock formations?" Sunset said uncertainly.

"How many of you are there? If there's too many I'm not taking anyone anywhere."

"There's six of my friends, including me that makes seven. Is that too much?"

"I'm afraid so. I don't trust seven people to sit and behave themselves in my bus while I've got my back turned."

At that moment, Sunset started panicking. Who knew when another vehicle would come by? She had been waiting by the road for nearly an hour when the bus drove up.

"Please, we don't know where we are or where we need to go, we need your help. I promise we won't get up to any trouble. You won't even know we're there. We just need to get to a city so we can get oriented and call someone to pick us up. Please?"

Just then, a voice came from behind one of the pillars of rock behind her, and several more teenage girls walked into view. The stranger in the gas mask watched them, unmoving, from his place on the step of the bus. When they saw him and the giant, heavily modified bus, they stopped, just behind the first girl.

"Hey, Sunset, who're to talkin' to? Did you find somethin' about where we are?" Said the blonde girl with the brown Stetson cowboy hat. She had looked slightly puzzled until she noticed the stranger on the bus had a large-bore pistol out, at which point she blanched.

As they all came into sight, the seven of them stood together and looked to each other for answers as to what was going on, until Sunset stepped forward.

"These are my friends. This is all of us. Please, you don't need to have the gun out, none of us have one."

The masked stranger said nothing for a short time, then made a sudden movement. The girls all flinched, afraid he was going to shoot them, but the man just stuck his gun inside his coat.

"Ah, what the hell. I'm probably gonna regret this, but I guess I could give you girls a ride to Crevice. It's a big city with all the amenities anyone could need. I'm sure you can find what you're looking for there. Besides, I'm going there myself right now."

Sunset breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you. We really appreciate it. But just so we're clear, you're not going to point anymore guns at us, right?"

"Not unless there's a reason to. Alright everybody, get aboard, we've been waiting here long enough, and there's a few rules we need to go over if you're riding in the bus."

One of the girls pulled Sunset back before she could get more than a few steps, and pulled them all into a huddle.

"Are you crazy?!" Said the girl with pink, fluffy hair. "We can't trust him! He's got a gun and he could have shot us! Plus, just look at that thing. It doesn't look like any bus I've ever seen, and he's definitely not a city bus driver."

"I agree Sunset, we simply can't get driven around in something like that. I mean, just _look_ at it, it's hideous, and dirty too."

Sunset pulled away from the others a bit.

"Girls, listen. We don't know what kind of world we've gotten ourselves into, and by the looks of this guy and his bus, it's a pretty dangerous world. I think we're lucky we didn't get found by someone else. If people in this world pull guns out just when meeting each other, I don't even want to know what happens when they don't like each other."

"In our world, someone like him would get arrested." Said the blonde girl again.

"Yeah, well this isn't our world anymore. I don't think we have a choice but to get to know someone from this world, and as much as I don't trust him, he's the only person around. Remember, we were looking for people for almost two hours and all we found were these rocks."

"You girls coming, or did you change your minds? You seemed pretty desperate to get off this rock and somewhere halfway civilized just a minute ago."

When he said this, Sunset blushed as the blonde girls said, "desperate? Sunset, what does he mean by that?"

"Nothing. I panicked."

Turning back to the man in the gas mask she said, "Yeah, we're coming, wait up!"

The stranger disappeared inside the bus and the group cautiously filed in after him.

A collective gasp could be heard as they beheld the interior of the bus. No longer were there rows and rows of seats next to giant windows. That had all been removed. Instead, on the driver's side of the bus, directly behind the driver's seat, a large table had been bolted to the floor and what looked like a restaurant booth had been set up around it, with high-backed, comfortable couches taking the place of chairs and a large map of an unrecognizable landmass on the wall where a window used to be. On the other side, the entire area was cleared to make a long hallway that ran most of the length of the bus, with closed off sections hiding closets, lockers, bunk beds, and other useful areas. Most interestingly, the interior of the bus had none of the slapped-together, shambled look of the exterior. While the inside was still armored, with plate metal welded and bolted onto nearly every interior surface, and multiple guns mounted on the walls of the vehicle could be pointed outside and fired from the protection of the walls, the inside of the huge vehicle was very clean and neat, with colorful wall paint creating sharp-edged spirals as one looked down the length of the bus.

A girl with rainbow-colored hair was the first to speak.

"Woah! This place looks awesome! Did you do this all yourself?"

The stranger took off his gas mask to show a younger face than the girls had been expecting.

"Yes, I did. It took me a long time to build it up to the magnificence that it is now, but I've been working on it for just over two years, and I add to it whenever I feel the need."

"Hey, why don't we get some introductions started? We might as well tell you a bit about ourselves, and you obviously have a lot about you that we don't know." Sunset said, as the girls all sat down in the booth.

"That sounds fine. My name is Verdak Meranza Grey, but you can just call me Grey." Said the man. He had cold, green eyes, had blond hair, and pale skin. Coupled with his height and thin build, he looked almost more intimidating than when he was wearing his gas mask.

"I'm 19, and I'm a travelling merchant and mercenary for hire, though I usually like being a merchant more."

After a few moments, Sunset realized that he was not going to say any more about himself, so she stood up to indicate that she would introduce herself next.

"My name's Sunset Shimmer, I'm 17, I like hanging out with my friends and playing in our band."

One by one they introduces themselves, though only for Verdak's benefit, as the girls obviously all knew each other.

"Mah name's Applejack. I'm 17, ah play a bass in our band and ah appreciate hard work and friendly competition," said the blond girl with the Stetson hat.

"Well my name's Pinkie Pie!" Shouted the girl with pink fluffy hair. "I looove throwing parties and having fun! Oh and playing the drums! I'm 17 too."

After Pinkie's outburst, there was a brief silence, and a girl with glasses and purple hair tied in a bun stood up.

"Umm, my name's Twilight Sparkle, I'm also 17, I like reading, writing, and learning. I especially like being with my friends and learning about friendship with them."

"Well I guess there's no harm in going next," said the other girl with purple hair, but this time elegantly fashioned into a long swirl that ran down past her shoulders.

"I'm Rarity. I play a keytar, and my passion is making beautiful dresses and outfits for every occasion. Like almost everyone else has said, I'm also 17." With a flourish of her hair, she gracefully sat back down on the cleanest seat available at the makeshift booth. She didn't see Verdak roll his eyes as she finished, but then Applejack pushed the Girl with rainbow hair off the edge of the seat with a small chuckle and said, "Hey, RD, why don't you go next?"

"Humph, you don't have to push me off the chair! Fine I'll go. Hey, my name's Rainbow Dash, and I'm 17. I'm awesome, cool, radical, wicked, and I play the electric guitar in my band-"

" _Our_ band," scowled Applejack, "remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Listen Grey, if you think you're hot stuff just because you can make an old rust bucket like this look cool, you ain't seen nothing yet. I'll blow your mind, so don't even think you're better at anything than me. I'm the most daring girl at CHS."

"Geez Rainbow, you don't have to intimidate him, he was kind enough to offer us a ride. Don't make him change his mind," Sunset Shimmer said.

"It's no problem, Sunset Shimmer. In fact it kind of makes me feel a little more at ease. A lot of people try to intimidate others as a defense, especially in the Wastelands, so I'm used to it, and it makes it a little easier to relate." Grey said.

"Anyway, is that everyone? 'Cuz I need to lay down some-"

"Wait! Wait! Flutters didn't get to introduce herself yet!" Yelled Pinkie Pie.

She pulled a girl with super long, light pink hair out from behind Rarity, where she had been hiding.

"Alright, do your thing!" She shouted, and jumped to the side.

"Umm, he… hello… My name… is… flutt-" The girl mumbled.

"What? I'm sorry, what did you say?" Grey asked.

"I said… my name's… fluttersh-" She squeaked.

Sunset Shimmer stepped forward, much to the girl's appreciation.

"Her name's Fluttershy, and well, she's pretty quiet and shy, as you can obviously tell. She's the oldest out of all of us, she just turned 18, and she's in our band too, she plays the tambourine, and she's also really good with animals. Now that's everyone, so we can get going, right?"

"Not just yet," Grey interjected.

"First, I need to explain some rules I have on my bus. If you're going to be here, you all need to follow them. First off, it's called the Fortress Buster, kind of a cheesy name, I know, but I chose it and you can refer to it as such. As for the rules, number one: nobody touches anything unless I give you explicit consent or I specifically tell you to do something which requires touching something in this bus. Number two: Don't lie to me about anything. If something bad happens, especially if someone starts chasing us or shooting at us, let me know. Number three: don't do anything stupid. And this final thing isn't really a rule, but if we don't manage to get to Crevice by tonight, then you'll have to sleep in here. Don't worry, I've got plenty of beds throughout the bus. Most of the time I just use them as storage areas, but we can move a few things and they'll be fine. And don't worry, they have their own little rooms with doors and blinds and everything, so you'll have privacy if you want it, granted it is a little cramped. Other than that, we can get going now. Any questions?"

"Actually, I've got a lot, but they can wait until we're under way." Replied Sunset.

"Alrighty then. I would suggest you all just stay in this area. You guys said you were lost, so if you want, there's a map right here you can use to familiarize yourselves with the area and maybe you'll figure out where you were when you got lost."

With that, Grey walked over to the driver's seat and started up the music again. Hanging his gas mask up on a little hook beside him, he locked the safeties of the Fortress Buster's anti-personnel weapons, and turned on the swing music he had been listening to earlier.

As they got moving, Grey opened the windows he could from where he was, and a gentle breeze began to move through the interior of the vehicle, reminding everyone of how hot it was outside, and how much tension they had just gotten past.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Exposition and Backstory Time

Sunset Shimmer left her friends in the booth and walked up to Grey; the guy had just started up the bus and they were now heading down a dusty, cracked highway. As the chatter of the group started up behind her, Sunset watched as Grey pushed buttons and flicked switches on a giant control panel that had been affixed beside the driver's seat, and heard whirring, clicks, and the sounds of windows opening behind her.

"So, umm. I didn't know bus windows could be opened from the front seat," she said, trying to ease into a conversation with him.

"They can't. Not normally anyway. But I live, work, and travel largely alone, so I modified this one to be able to do that."

"So, what kind of work do you do? You said you were a merchant. What's that like?"

"I buy stuff, and sell it. That's literally all there is to being a merchant. The only thing to keep in mind is to buy something when its price is low, and sell it when the price is high. That's how you make a profit. And that's fundamental for all business, not just trading."

"I see." Sunset was having difficulty getting somewhat human response from him. So far he _had_ answered her questions, but he had answered them like a dictionary.

"Umm, so tell me. What's this place you called, Crevice was it? What's it like?"

"Crevice is one of the major economic cities and one of the biggest ones within the Territorial Areas. It's almost like a port the way it attracts trade and business. But you'll see that when we get there. I'm surprised you haven't heard of it before. It's pretty well-known to anyone within a few hundred klicks of the city. And even people on the outskirts of the Wastelands have at least heard of it."

He half-turned in his seat to look at her beside him for a few moments.

"Actually, now that we have some time, why don't you tell me what happened to you girls. I'm very curious as to why you seem to know nothing about the world and why you're all so, well, _clean_. Out here in the Wastelands, nobody stays clean, especially if they've been lost. Now I don't know why, but I feel like I can trust you girls a little better than most, but I want to know why you all look so out of place."

Sunset Shimmer sighed, "Well, I guess after being nice to us-actually, no, you pointed a gun at us, you weren't exactly nice-but you did agree to take us to a city, so I guess you deserve an explanation."

Suddenly Pinkie Pie popped out from behind Sunset Shimmer, making her jump.

"Ooh, ooh, ooh, can I tell him? Please, please, please, please, please?"

"Pinkie, I'm sure you would do a great job of explaining it, but I just think I would do it slower, you know?" Sunset replied.

"Aww," Pinkie sighed. As she did so, she put on a heartbreaking expression, until Sunset Shimmer said, "Fine."

"Yay!" Pinkie yelled.

"Grey, you probably won't believe us," Sunset said. "But it's the truth, we swear."

Pinkie inhaled hugely and then started shooting out words like water shooting out of a fire hydrant.

"We're from a parallel world where we're high school students who have a friend from _another_ parallel world with magic and she's a princess and because she came over to our world we can use magic when we play music and show the truest parts of ourselves and we were trying to find a way to look through the portal without actually having to go through to see what it's like in _her_ world, but instead we got sucked through the portal and we ended up in the middle of the desert in this world and we couldn't find the portal for the way back, so now we're stuck here for a really, _really_ long time unless we can find some way to open the portal again and go back home," as she finished, Pinkie had to take yet another huge breath.

Grey had listened to the whole thing without saying a word or changing his expression, and when it was over, he took a few minutes to compose a response.

"Well, it's not the strangest story I've ever heard, but it kind of makes sense as to why none of you girls have any idea of the Territorial Areas, and why you're all dressed like you are. But like I said, it _kind of_ makes sense. One thing I don't understand is if you're from another world and you can use magic, why didn't you just use magic to open another portal and go back home? Hmm?"

"Uhh," Sunset sighed, "It doesn't work that way. I tried using our magic to influence the portal, but the portal exists before and after we ponied-up-"

"Wait, what?"

"Oh, pony-up, it's the word we came up with to describe our magic, er, activating I guess. But like I was saying, the portal exists with or without us, and unless we have a powerful magical artifact to power it, we can't make one of our own. On its own, the portal only opens about every three years, and we don't know if this world has a similar one that opens in the same time interval. That's why we need your help. We need to learn about this world so we can find a way back and fit in here until we do."

"Well then." Grey appeared lost for words, and waited until the bus had crested the top of a hill before stopping and shutting it down.

"Whether you're telling the truth or you're just making up a story to pay for the ride I can't tell. But it was not the kind of thing I would have usually heard so I'll credit your vast imaginations. Although I feel ridiculous doing this, I can teach you the basics of what this world is like. That is, if you really _are_ from some random dimension that is completely different than this."

Getting up from his seat, he walked with Sunset and Pinkie to the small table-booth-like area a couple meters back and they rejoined the other girls, who were deep in a whispered conversation. As the three of them approached, the girls fell silent and watched Grey with slight suspicion in their eyes. He matched it with an unreadably bored expression.

Gesturing to Pinkie and Sunset, he said, "These two have told me most of what happened to you girls, and I've decided, although I have no idea why, that I will help you get accustomed to this place, seeing as you might be here for a very long time and you have no knowledge of how this world works." He turned back to the whole group.

"I'll start with geography, and when we get to Crevice, I can teach you how to do business and stay alive in a community. But since nothing's free in this world, in exchange for teaching you all about this world and how to survive in it, you'll have to work for me. That's my offer, take it, and you can learn how to get home, have food to eat and a bed to sleep in, and you'll learn what exactly it is merchants do in this world. Decline and I'll finish taking you to Crevice, tell you where you can find someone who can explain things to you, we'll most likely never see each other again, and you can go on your way. Either option gets you to Crevice, which is where you said you originally wanted to go."

Rainbow Dash was the first one to speak.

"Wait, what? We work for _you?_ We barely even know you! And who says we can't get back home on our own? I mean I don't want to sit in this slow, stinking bus all day!"

"Hey, I keep this vehicle in very high upkeep, alright? And I won't have you insulting it. This "stinking bus" has save my life many times before. You're new in this world, so I'll be a little patient with you, but you have to learn that this is a dangerous, cruel, and unforgiving world. I'm being _very_ kind to you girls with this offer, and you're not obligated to take it. Let me remind you that it costs money to feed, transport, and house eight people for however long you girls may be staying here. Now, I'm giving you the ride to Crevice for free, and I know this is a lot to take in all at once, so you have until we get there to make a decision. Does that sound fair?"

"I think it sounds very fair, darling, but if I take your offer and I'm going to have to sit in this bus all day, you'll have to let me spruce it up a little. The inside is certainly an improvement over the outside, but a lady like me needs proper accommodation. You'll have to excuse me, but this place needs a _lady's_ touch, to make it feel more like a home, you know?" Rarity said.

"If you accept my offer and you're going to want to make some "accomodations," you'll have to check with me first. Half of this bus can blow up if you're not careful. But I guess I can't object to you bringing a personal touch if you're going to be living here. Does this mean you've already made up your mind?" Grey asked.

"Oh dear heavens, no! I was just clearing a few things up. I'll only be taking your offer if my friends decide to stay too."

"Very well. Anyone else have questions or concerns?" He looked around the small sitting area.

"Yeah, why are you helping us and giving us these opportunities?" Twilight said tentatively. "You said it's a really dangerous and unfriendly world, so why are you being so friendly to us?"

"That," Grey replied, "Is a very good question. One which I don't actually know the answer to. It's weird, I'm getting a good feeling from you girls, which is strange because I never get feelings from anyone. I guess time will tell whether this is really a good idea or a terrible one."

"That doesn't really answer my question."

"Well, what do you want from me? I'm trusting my intuition. I don't have a better explanation for you."

"Ah'll believe that. Personally, ah think it's a pretty good deal. Ah can understand the logic of having us work for you if you're gonna be providin' us with a place te live, and food te eat. Now ah'm not sayin' I accept just yet, ah'm just sayin the terms seem pretty fair to me too," Applejack said.

"Are you guys listening to yourselves?!" Rainbow Dash cried as she stood up.

"What's wrong with everyone? Are you guys serious?! We should be figuring a way to get back home, not taking jobs and making new lives here in this world! It's like you've all given up going home already."

Sunset shimmer put a calming hand on Rainbow Dash's back.

"We all want to get back home Dash, but the truth of the matter is, we don't know how, and the only way we're going to be able to do that is to learn about this world and explore it. If there's a stationary portal to go back home like there was in the statue back at CHS, then we have to find it, and this Crevice City-place sounds like as good a place as any to start. Plus none of us have agreed to work for Grey in exchange for being taught yet. We'll stick together, no matter what, okay?"

Rainbow Dash still had a hurt look in her eyes, but after a moment seemed to regain her strength and nodded, "Yeah… we'll stick together. That's what friends do."

Sunset turned back to Grey.

"Hey, what was your first name again? You said we can call you Grey, but that sounds kind of weird."

Grey cocked an eyebrow at her.

"I use Grey as my name because I don't believe in using someone's full name unless there's actually a good reason to, but if you insist, my firstname is Verdak. I don't understand why you would want to call me that though, I usually use Grey because it's just easier to use."

"Listen, Verdak, we're thankful for the offer, but can you leave us so we can discuss it ourselves? It's a lot to think about, and it's going to have a big impact on us no matter what we choose."

"Of course you can," he gave a short bow, "I would not expect anyone to make any kind of decision without being given the chance to think it over first. Like I said, you have until we get to Crevice to make up your minds. Depending on the weather and how fast I can make the Fortress Buster go, we might get there tonight, or you might have to spend the night in here and we'll get there tomorrow morning. You have plenty of time. I think I've wasted enough of our time with this near-pointless stop, so I'll get back to driving and leave you girls to yourselves. By the way, one more thing. Remember, Don't. Touch. Anything. Understand? It may very well blow up if you do."

With that he walked back up front, sat back in the drivers' seat, and they were once again on their way.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Under The Wing

Twilight looked around at her friends. She still barely knew any of them, it had only been about a month since she had transferred from Crystal Prep Academy to Canterlot High School and she was just starting to understand them. _I knew friendship was going to be hard, but I never expected it to be this difficult,_ she thought to herself. _I thought I'd be able to help ease everyone's tensions and find a solution to this, but it seems like I've just been useless so far._ Shaking her thoughts out of her head, she focused back on the discussion that had just started up.

"Well ah fer one think it's a right great idea. I don't know whatcha'll are goin' on about, he seems like an honest feller to me. I'd be happy to work with someone with greater experience o' this world. 'Sides, like Sunset Shimmer and this Ver-whats-'is-name fella said, we don't know anythin' about this place an' ah'm willin' to bet my hat that some good, hard, honest work won't harm us."

"Hey, AJ, I don't mean to burst your bubble, but he said that if we take this deal, then we're gonna work _for_ him, not with him. And I get a weird feeling from him, like he's trying to use us."

"I for one have to agree with Rainbow Dash," said Twilight, "we don't need more trouble than we already have. I'm sure we'll be able to figure out how to get home one way or another. We don't need this guy's help in order to do so."

"I really wanna see this giant city! I need to find the best party store around 'cuz I'm almost out of balloons and confetti." Pinkie squealed.

"Pinkie," Rarity eyed her suspiciously, "you've had quite a change of heart. You were one of the first to object to us coming along with this shady character in the first place, weren't you?"

"Hey, that was before I saw the inside of this _awesome_ party bus! It reminds me of this one time in chemistry class when me and Sunset Shimmer accidentally spilled chemicals and everything just got so colorful and funny! How can I get a bad feeling from a memory like that?! And besides, like Verdak said, we're going to the city anyway, so I'll be able to stop by a party shop and stock up on what I'm missing again. I just hope I brought enough money with me"

"Pinkie, you do know that was dangerous, right? You and Sunset had to be taken to the school nurse and were both sent home early. And this bus is a bus, not a memory, so don't judge it before you know what kind of secrets it has." Rainbow Dash interjected. "He's already said twice that it can blow up, and I don't want to be anywhere near it if it's gonna blow."

Applejack turned and focused her attention on Rainbow Dash, "If I remember correctly, it was you who first said this place looked 'awesome'. What was with yer sudden change o' heart? Hmm? And you can lay offa Pinkie Pie and take yer own advice fer once, not judgin' this bus an' giving it a chance seems like a good idea to me."

"Hey, I didn't mean "don't judge it badly because it might be good," I meant "don't judge it good because it's more than likely dangerous." Does that make sense now?" She snapped back.

"Umm, girls?" Fluttershy whispered, so quietly the only person who heard her was Twilight, and that was because she saw Fluttershy's mouth move.

"Well maybe if you took a look at all the hard work that's been put into this machine, you'd see that there's gotta be some aspects of it and its owner that are worth learnin' about!" Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both on their feet now, and had raised their voices nearly to the point of shouting.

"Umm, girl-"

"Well you'd just love to grub around in something, doing hard work and chores, even if it's metal instead of dirt!"

"Well ah never! Just because ah'm a hard worker and you never appreciate more'n a day's work yourself doesn't mean you can't give it a shot and see if it's worth the cost!"

"Girls? I think maybe this is getting-" Fluttershy started, but once again, she was drowned out by the other two.

"I work plenty hard! I was the one who put the band together, and if you hadn't noticed, I'm on all the sports teams at school, remember? It's not exactly easy juggling school, athletics, and band practise every week, not to mention our constant get-togethers!"

"If you're sayin' you don't wanna hang out with us after school anymore, then by all means! Stay with yer precious sports teams instead! Ah never knew you felt that we were draggin' you down so much!"

"Gir-"

"That's not what I meant! I was just saying that I'm not as lazy as you might think! I love hanging out with everyone. Being able to unload from all the stress after school is all that keeps me going some days! And you'd just love to have me out of the picture, wouldn't you? Then you'd be the only strong, daring girl in the group!"

"Now hold on just a dang minute! Ah never said-"

"And moreover, I'm getting sick and tired of-"

"GIRLS!" Fluttershy yelled, "You have to stop arguing! What's gotten into you two? The only times you've ever acted like this were when Sunset Shimmer and the Dazzlings tried to break us apart."

"Fluttershy's right you guys," Sunset Shimmer said, "you never were like this unless something huge was happening."

"Well in case you haven't noticed, Sunset, something huge _is_ happening, and I'm really stressed right now. I feel like I'm the _only_ one who seems to think this guy is bad news. He said he's got a good feeling about us, but I've got a bad feeling about him," Rainbow Dash explained, "why can't we just go to this Crevice place and then leave him. I don't want this to get any worse."

"Darling, how could this possibly get any worse for you? It's me that has to worry, this world looks like it's I desperate need of a fashion miracle, or perhaps a fashion miracle-worker…" Rarity trailed off until Pinkie exploded.

"Don't say that! Never, ever, EVER under any circumstances say that it can't get worse! It will ALWAYS get worse!" Pinkie yelled.

"And how do ya know that?" asked Applejack.

"It always happens in the movies. The characters get into a bad or strange situation, someone says that it can't get worse, and then it gets a lot worse!"

"Pinkie," Twilight said, "it's not going to get worse, alright? And Rainbow Dash, I know I don't know you well, or any of you for that matter, but this doesn't seem like you. You're always the one to say that everything's going to be easy and that you'll be the one to do it, so why are you so stressed?"

"Well, every time we've had to face a huge magical problem, we've had each other, which is fine cuz we've got each other now, but this time we're somewhere we've never been before. We were always fighting for friendship on our home turf, and we knew the rules, but here, I don't even know if there are any rules."

Just then, Rainbow Dash's stomach let out a huge growl.

"Aaaaaand I might be just a little bit hungry," she added.

"Wait a just a doggone minute!" Applejack cried out, "Are you telling me that you're in such a bad mood and you're arguin' just because you're hungry?"

"No! Not entirely…"

Suddenly, Applejack's stomach let out a thunderous growl of its own.

"Well, he he, maybe you're not the only one that's a bit cranky cuz they haven't had much to eat since they got here," Applejack concluded.

"Yeah, maybe," Rainbow Dash agreed.

"I think we could all use a bit of food right now, plus it might help us relax a bit," Sunset Shimmer suggested, "Does anyone have any snacks from lunch or something?"

"Ooh, ooh I do!" Pinkie said, a huge grin plastered to her face as she slung her backpack off her shoulders and started digging around in it.

Just then Twilight realized that she too, as well as everyone else besides Pinkie, still had their backpacks on from earlier today. They hadn't taken them off when they had sat down in the bus's booth.

As everyone realized it too, they all began taking their backpacks and looking to see if they had anything left over from lunch of that day. As Twilight opened her backpack, Spike's head popped out and he gave a quiet whine.

"Oh, Spike! I forgot you were in there! I'm so sorry! You must be hungry too."

"Well, that little critter don't seem too much worse for wear, but I'd forgotten he was here too. I think you should keep him outta sight in case Grey just so happens to look back here. We don't know if he'll like havin' a dog on board his bus," Applejack warned.

When Sunset Shimmer opened her backpack she saw a familiar book was buzzing and glowing.

"Hey girls, look! Princess Twilight must have replied by now!"

"Finally!" Rainbow Dash cried, "We would have been goners if she hadn't seen your message."

"Yeah, I forgot I had written to her after we fell into this world. Boy, am I glad it still works."

"But why wouldn't it work, darling?" Rarity asked.

"Well, just because it worked between two worlds, doesn't mean it would work through three, and remember, we had a tough time ponying-up earlier today when we found ourselves here. I didn't know if magic even existed in this world."

"Can we hear what it says?" Fluttershy asked quietly.

"Oh, yeah, sure," Sunset Shimmer replied.

As she opened the book to the correct page, princess Twilight's response was written down and was gently glowing. Another message, the one Sunset Shimmer had written to Twilight about their predicament, was on the opposite page. It read:

 _Dear Princess Twilight,_

 _I know there hasn't been much going on here since the last time you visited, and I'm sure you're very busy with your royal duties, but I think we got ourselves into some real trouble this time. I know this will sound like an odd letter, but I think we're going to need your help more than ever this time. It started off with Pinkie Pie getting impatient. She wanted to see what Equestria was like, and no amount of stories I told could paint the picture like seeing it for herself. Pretty soon the Twilight from this world, your double, wanted to see it as well, to be able to safely see this time, what she wanted so desperately before, and to see if it could help us learn about magic in this world. Soon enough everyone was on board with the idea, me included, so I devised a spell that would work when we ponied-up, and would change the portal for the duration we were ponied-up. It was supposed to make the portal uncrossable for a few minutes, and it would act like a window instead, just so we could all see Equestria, or at least whatever part of Equestria the portal was facing. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan, and just as we were starting to see a fuzzy picture on the surface of the portal, we all got sucked through and now we're in some kind of new world, one that I'd never even could have guessed existed. We've already tried to get back home by ponying-up and trying to re-open the portal, but magic doesn't work the same way it does in Equestria or even like it does at CHS. I don't even know if this book will work here, but if you have any ideas, or have heard of anything like this happening before, please tell me. I patiently await your reply._

 _Your friend, Sunset Shimmer._

As she looked over her words again, Sunset Shimmer felt a pang of regret for not being more responsible and putting a stop to something that could have had, and in fact ended up having, extremely dangerous consequences. Snapping herself back to the present, she started reading princess Twilight's reply.

" _Dear Sunset Shimmer,_

 _Firstly, to answer your question, no I have not heard of yet more worlds existing, and I've only ever heard a few legends of somepony being banished to another world, which makes me think that you've discovered a new world on your own. That being said, I can't believe you thought it was a good idea to try and change how the portal works. I managed to change it on my end to be able to cross over whenever I needed because I have a firm understanding of how magic in Equestria works, and I know you explained to me that you figured out how it works at CHS, but it's still really hard to control. I wished you had talked some sense into the others as to how dangerous it could be, or at least have told me beforehand what you were going to do. I really wish I could come there and help you, but I cannot leave Equestria right now, and even if I could, there's no way to know I could replicate your spell and come find you. I'm sorry Sunset Shimmer, I really wish I could do something, but it looks like you girls got yourself into this mess and there's nothing I can do to help you. You'll have to get out of it yourselves._

 _Your friend, Twilight Sparkle."_

As she looked up from the book, Sunset Shimmer didn't even have to see the others' faces to know how crestfallen they all were.

After a moment however, Sunset Shimmer steeled her resolve and stood up, addressing them all.

"Alright, so we screwed up, and there's nothing Princess Twilight can do to help us. That leaves us with only one option.

"Oh yeah? And what's that?" Rainbow Dash asked dejectedly.

"We're going to have to take Princess Twilight's advice, and find a way to get back home ourselves." She looked around.

"Come on girls, nothing's really changed from five minutes ago. We're still stuck in this world for now, we're on this bus with a guy who's given us a job offer, and we're heading towards a major city, where we might be able to find something about how to get back home. We had all completely forgot that I had asked Princess Twilight for help, so knowing that she can't help us shouldn't change anything. Our number one priority is still finding a way to open a portal and get back home, and number one on the checklist to do that is to decide whether or not we're going to take Verdak's offer."

"You know what? You're right" Rainbow Dash said, standing up beside Sunset Shimmer.

"Nothing _has_ changed. And if it means getting home faster then I'll swallow my pride just this once and go along with you guys. I'll take his offer if you girls do."

"Wait, what?" Rarity said incredulously, her eyes popping wide open and her jaw dropping.

"You? Swallow your pride? For _anything?_ " She looked around at the other girls to make sure they had all heard it too.

Applejack stood up, a smile on her face.

"Who are ya, and what have ya done to Rainbow Dash?"

"Alright," Sunset Shimmer said, "does that mean we're all decided? Are we all going for it? What about you Fluttershy, you've barely spoken at all."

"I'm fine with whatever we do, so long as I have my friends with me," Fluttershy replied.

"Me too!" Cried Pinkie Pie.

As the rest of the girls chorused in with "Me too!"s of their own, Sunset looked at Twilight, and saw the same resolve she herself felt. _That's funny, it seems like she's really changed since she joined us at CHS._

They were all agreed, they would face whatever challenges came because of it, but most importantly, they would face it together.

As Grey drove the giant articulated bus, he saw the sky outside slowly getting darker, and the scenery around the highway had begun to change. Instead of dry, cracked dirt, small patches of green grass, and bushes growing near ponds were visible. More importantly, he had heard enough of what was going on with his hitchhikers to have a general idea of what was going on. They had started arguing, and he had been about to yell at them to shut up, when one of the girls nearly did it for him. After that, they had calmed down a bit, but they had seemed down. Slowly, they had built up their morale about their situation that they were firing each other up and they had all come together in a group hug and said what Grey assumed was, "let's do it," which he assumed meant they had taken his offer. He thought they would have come and told him then, what they had decided, but it seemed their good mood was not going to be chained at its current level, and soon enough they were singing and one of them had even produced a tambourine from somewhere.

Now, just finishing their third song about friendship and working together and whatever else (Grey didn't much care, but he had turned off his own music to have a bit of quiet as he concentrated on the road, and now the oddly catchy tunes were grating on his nerves), they were about to break into a fourth when Grey spotted a dark mass on the horizon, barely visible against the dark blue mountains behind it.

"Hey, girls, not that your singing isn't great, but if you want, we've just come within sight of Crevice and you can have your first look at it now."

If the drivers-side window hadn't been reinforced and covered in metal slat that were welded to both the interior and exterior of the vehicle, He would have been knocked right out of the window as all the girls crowded to the front of the bus to try and get a look at Crevice.

"Where is it?" Rainbow Dash asked, "I only see mountains and hills."

"It's that up there," Grey said, pointing through the slatted windshield at the grey smudge on the horizon, "I know you can't see much right now, but we're within sight of Crevice, and it's only late afternoon, so we'll be getting in there tonight. With any luck, we can avoid the worst of the rain in a motel somewhere." He caught himself.

"Or rather, _I'll_ avoid the worst of it in a motel. You girls will only get to stay out of the rain if you're coming with me for work. You'll have to find something else if you decide not to work for, and get taught by, me."

"Verdak," Sunset Shimmer said.

"Yeah?"

"All of us here," she took a deep breath to steady herself. They had all made the decision and were committed to it either way now.

"We've decided we're going to take your offer. We want to learn from you about this world, so that we can get back home, and in exchange, we'll work for you."

"All of you?" Grey asked. He seemed a bit surprised.

"Yes, all of us. Why, is there a problem with that?"

"No, no, no problem, or at least, I hope there won't be any. I've had a few people take my offer, and some kids even ask me outright if they can become my apprentices, but I've never had more than two people working for me on the Fortress Buster before. This will be interesting to say the least. Of that much, I'm certain."

"Well," he turned his head to look at the girls beside him, "looks like we've got ourselves a deal. I'll write up a contract and we can agree on the terms later, but for now, Welcome aboard the Fortress Buster. You're now officially crewmembers aboard this vehicle, and it's yours to call home. But like I said before, if you want to make any "personal touches" to it, you check with me first. That's about all I can think of right now to saw. Let's see how this is going to turn out."

As they drove on, the sky was now pretty dark, and heavy raindrops were falling on a much more lush hilly area on their way to the City of Crevice. Soon, the bus was close enough that they could see lights coming on, along with massive metal spires jutting up from behind huge city walls, and buildings of strange architecture clinging to cliffs on the far side of the city to rise high above where they could see through the windshield of the armored bus. More cars had joined them now, in fact they were surrounded. Cars, trucks, motorbikes, and huge tracked vehicles of all kind, as well as people on horseback, with carriages and carts, and even just on foot were all moving slowly towards the giant metal and concrete walls that hid most of the city from view. Every vehicle in sight was forming rows and trying to make its way to one of several heavily armored gates set within the wall, and the vehicles themselves were all in some way modified like the Fortress Buster. Spikes, guns, and armor plating adorned most of them, while Twilight saw a motorcycle with extremely long, barbed-wire antennae protruding from just in front of the handlebars and arching up and behind the driver something like fifteen feet.

Applejack saw what looked like the silhouette of a tank far in front of them in the dark, and Pinkie Pie spotted, just before it was lost to sight behind another heavily changed bus, a small, rounded car with a Gatling gun mounted on the roof that was nearly as large as the car that carried it.

Seeing all this, Sunset Shimmer's expression hardened, and she briefly reflected how lucky they seemed to be, having run into Grey, and not someone else.

 _Yeah we've landed ourselves into something I'd rather not think about. But we're all here, and we'll have to do something about it, and one thing's for sure,_ she thought as she looked around at the other girls, at her best friends, _we're going to face the best and the worst that this world can throw at us, but we'll do it together._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Crevice and Business

Sunset Shimmer watched as the bus slowly moved towards the gate of the strange city. They were only a few cars away from the gate that Grey had steered them towards, and sunset noticed that there were only very large vehicles going through this one. All the smaller cars, as well as the horse-drawn carts and people on foot had formed lines in front of the smaller openings to the left of them. After a few minutes, Grey moved the bus forward and they were the next ones to go into the gate.

As they drove into the giant arched tunnel that made up the city wall gate, they were obscured by the shadows, and Grey flicked on the roof-mounted lights.

Moving up to a window set in the left side of the tunnel, Grey turned to the girls and said, "Here, I've got to secure our admission papers to get into the city, why don't you girls go back and sit down. If the gate guard sees you all here it'll raise some questions and make this more bothersome."

"Are you smuggling us in or something?" Twilight asked.

"No, but if you're all up here with me it's going to make things harder for me, and if you get asked a question, you won't know how to respond to it. So I ask again, can you all please go back and sit down? You can still talk, but just keep the singing down until we're through, okay?"

"Okay."

"Alright."

"Sure!"

"Fine by me."

"Thank you," Grey replied, as the seven girls moved back to the booth. A conversation started up at once, but Sunset Shimmer stopped after a few steps, where she leaned up against the wall of the bus, just out of sight of the driver's window, so she could hear what was going on between Grey and the guard.

Grey inched the bus along until his window was directly beside the guardhouse window set into the tunnel wall and opened it about ten centimeters.

Even before he looked over, Grey could tell who the guard on duty was by the god-awful death metal music coming from the window.

"Hey Grey, you're cutting it pretty close, don't you know the meeting's in only two days?" the guard asked cheerfully.

"Hello Morrison, I see you still feel the need to put your nose into other people's business. If you hadn't noticed, I've never missed a single meeting since I joined. And turn off that horrible screeching, you're going to bring the damn city walls down."

"Hey, hey," Morrison chided, "this song's a classic. You're just prejudiced against heavy metal."

"Maybe I am, but this song sucked even before it had a heavy metal cover of it remixed all to hell and back. The only original part of the crap you call music is the tempo."

"No way man! I'm telling you, this is a classic!"

Grey rubbed his temple with one hand.

"You don't even know what that means, do you? Wait, don't answer that, we've wasted enough time already."

"Alright, okay, fine. You win. Now what do you want?"

"Umm, hello? I'm trying to get in the city, remember? It's your job to file people through, you moron. Quit blanking out!"

"Hey! Don't call me a moron, or I'll get the Shift Sergeant!" Morrison threatened, his pudgy face reddening in anger.

"I've already talked to your Shift Sergeant twice before, remember? And he agrees with me. So do your damn job and quit your moping, I want to book into a motel or hotel before nightfall."

"Fine, have it your way," Morrison huffed.

"Large vehicle permission form. Purpose of visit?"

"Trade," Grey said.

"Alright, gotta give you the Merchant Council Stamp. Hold on just a second, it's gotta be here somewhere…" Morrison muttered as he started searching his desk for the stamp.

"Aha!" he exclaimed producing a small stamp from a cluttered drawer.

"Here we go. Now, what's next… oh yeah, length of stay?"

"Two to five weeks."

"Ok, would you like to pay an insurance fee for us to keep a second copy of your papers?"

"No, I'll be fine."

"And lastly, number of passengers? Huh, even I know that one. One. You never travel with any-"

"Wrong. Not one this time, Morrison. It's eight," Grey stated.

"Eight!?" Morrison cried, "I hope you're not planning on fighting a gang war while you're here, Grey. Jeez, I've rarely seen you with one other person whenever you're here, let alone seven. But fine, fine. Please print their genders and ages on the lines provided," Morrison said, passing the slip of paper through the windows to Grey.

Grey took out a pen, filling in both his, and his passenger's genders and ages, before passing the form back through the window.

Morrison took one look at the information written down on the form and his face instantly lit up.

"You've got seven teenage girls in there!? Damn, you must be having the time of your life! Do you think I can borrow a couple of them later this evening, when my shift ends?"

"Shut it Morrison. Get your head out of your ass, they're here on business," Grey growled at him.

"Riiight, business, I'm sure. C'mon, tell me, are they pretty high up?"

"What?" Gray asked, "What are you talking about?"

"I mean, are they at least easy to look at? Come on man, give me a few details, is one of them at least an eight?" Morrison said, winking at Grey, to which Grey responded with a stony expression of his own.

"Are we done yet?" Grey asked.

"Almost, almost," Morrison said, partially regaining his composure as he looked at the entrance permit again, "I just need to count it all up and you've got to sign it, so you take full responsibility," Morrison replied.

As Morrison gave back the admittance permit, he filled out a receipt and started reading off of it.

"Alright, so that will come to seven Silver Plarts for the bus, four to allow you to trade, and two Plarts per person, which comes to a total of twenty-seven Silver Plarts value."

Grey finished signing and reached into a pocket, from which he produced a small pouch. As Sunset Shimmer watched, Grey pulled out a handful of small, flat, silver squares and counted out twenty-seven, which he gave to Morrison in exchange for the receipt.

"Okay, enjoy your stay," Morrison said cheerfully, pushing a button that caused the large metal gate in front of them to raise and give them access to the interior of the city.

" _Now_ I can," Grey muttered to himself as he closed the window and drove forward.

Sunset Shimmer walked up to Grey as he maneuvered through the short, dark tunnel.

"Hey, I heard what you said to that guy, why were you being so mean to him? I mean, just because he's different from you doesn't mean you have to be so hostile towards him."

Grey rolled his eyes. She obviously had no idea what Morrison had been talking about most of the time.

"I'm mean to him because he's not worth being nice to, and it's not like I'm mean to him for no reason, I just can't stand him, he's so tiresome."

"Still, he didn't seem like he deserved that."

"You don't know him, okay? And I wish I didn't, but he's loud, fat, lazy, rude, absentminded, and obnoxious, so I try not to associate with him, and I don't want you girls associating with him either. Do you understand?"

Sunset Shimmer was a bit taken aback by the small outburst from Grey, but she bit back her retort and just nodded dumbly.

Just then, the bus emerged from the tunnel into the streets of the city, right in front of an intersection.

Anything that Sunset wanted to talk to Grey about was instantly wiped from her mind as she took in the entirety of the city from ground level.

"Hey girls? We're inside the walls. You can come up front and see now if you want," Grey called back to the rest of the group.

The other six girls came rushing forward and their jaws collectively dropped as they finally got their first good look at the city of Crevice. The buildings, which towered over them, were all hard edges and sharp angles, made of blue-grey metal and dark concrete, with flat, bladelike towers reaching into the stormy sky, and jutting silver balconies that wrapped around them looked like metal ribs.

Lights of all colors shone and blinked along the streets, which were packed with all manner and assortment of heavily modified and unrecognizable vehicles. Huge, green-tinted machines clung to the sides of buildings like spiders, or else squatted low on the ground, looking like miniature factories. People from all walks of life could be seen hurrying down the walkways.

There, Rarity saw an elegantly dressed couple step into an ornate, wooden, horse-drawn carriage, and there, Sunset Shimmer watched as two kids ran off with a pouch of some sort, being chased by two men in dark blue uniforms, before they disappeared into a network of tunnels set into the base of a large, low building.

Pinkie instantly noticed fireworks going off over a distant corner of the city, while Applejack watched street vendors quickly pack their stands away and hurry to get out of the rain.

Twilight spotted a tall, gangly robot twist its way through the crowded throng of people on the sidewalks; Fluttershy couldn't keep her eyes off the pet owners, as both disgusting and beautiful creatures on leashes were protected by an owner's umbrella, or else rolled in puddles on the ground; Rainbow Dash looked at a huge screen that hung from the side of a building, showing footage of a sport that consisted of three teams, two goal areas, and what looked like rocket-powered hang gliders.

Grey watched the girls with a calm smile on his face, feeling slightly amused by the girls being overwhelmed be their first visit to the city.

"Well girls, welcome to the great and magnificent city of Crevice!"

Grey pulled over by an inn in a quiet part of town, the luminescent sign over the door reading, _Sleepy Creek Inn._ It had stopped raining by now, leaving a light mist in its wake.

Shutting the bus down, he let the girls file out before him, so he could lock the vehicle up behind him. Walking to the office, Grey noticed that many of the girls looked extremely tired, and a couple were even leaning on each other for support.

 _I'll have to get some food into them before we go to sleep too I suppose,_ _uhh, this'll be even more expenses_. _I just hope they manage to start making the money back soon,_ he thought. Coming back to the present, he walked into the small, cramped inn's office behind the group of half-asleep teens. Pushing his way to the front, he found himself beside Sunset Shimmer, and addressed the innkeeper.

"Hi, we'd like a few rooms for the night. Do you have any vacancies?"

"Yeah, we got a couple," said the innkeeper, a middle-aged, bored looking lady with strange glasses.

Grey turned to the girls and asked, "Hey, how many rooms do you think you'll need? Two? Three?"

Sunset Shimmer took a moment to talk with the others, and then said, "We'll be fine with one room. We want to stay together for this first night. Is that okay?"

Grey looked at her blankly before turning to the innkeeper.

"If that's what you girls want. Hey, do you have any large rooms available?"

"We do, but none with enough beds for seven people. If you want I can fetch extra blankets for you though."

"That sounds fine. We'll take two rooms then, one with a single bed, and the largest room you have available."

The innkeeper motioned to an assistant sitting in an adjoining room and told him to lead the group to their rooms as Grey paid for them. The assistant took the keys to their respective rooms and took the group to them, opening the rooms and letting everyone in, before leaving the keys with someone from each room.

For the first time in several hours, Sunset Shimmer and her friends had complete privacy. Sunset still didn't know what to think about Grey, but now they had some time truly away from him, so they wouldn't have to keep their voices in check when talking about him.

As the seven of them started getting ready to try to sleep in the room, which was only about the size of a modest sitting room and had two beds, Sunset Shimmer plopped herself down into a corner, and took out the journal, intending to write Princess Twilight a response. As she looked at the others, their Twilight had just taken Spike out of his backpacky prison, and was giving him some dog treats she always carried around. Sunset's stomach began to growl, and she decided that just after she finished her letter to Princess Twilight, they would all find something to eat.

Grabbing one of the extra blankets the assistant innkeeper had brought, she wrapped it around herself, suddenly feeling cold.

Getting a pen out, she started writing:

 _Dear Princess Twilight…_

Sunset woke up to find herself in the same position she had been in when writing her letter. All that was written on the page was " _Dear Princess Twilight."_ She also realized that in her sleep, she had drooled over the page.

 _Aww, no! I hope_ that _doesn't get sent to the Twilight,_ after which she giggled, imagining alicorn Twilight opening the other journal, only to see a few words and a patch of drool.

Looking around the room, she noticed that everyone else was asleep, either in awkward positions like she was, or just collapsed under blankets on the floor or in the beds.

Waking up a bit more, she realized why she had woken up.

A gentle knocking could be heard coming from the door of their room.

 _It's probably Grey, I bet he's one of those early-morning types and wants us to get to work already,_ she thought as she stifled a yawn and walked over to the door. Looking sown, she realized she was still wearing her clothes from yesterday.

Shaking her head, she opened the door to see Grey standing in the hallw-

It wasn't Grey.

And it wasn't either of the Innkeepers she had seen last night either. There was a man with dark, greased hair and a leather jacket, surrounded by similar looking characters, all of whom carried guns and evil smiles.

Sunset barely had time to register the scene before her when the men came rushing into the room with ropes and blindfolds. She didn't even have time to scream.

Grey woke up to a pounding coming from his door. He had gone to bed later last night, after the girls. When he was done setting up his room the way he like it, he had come out and gently knocked on the door of the room the girls were staying in, but the only response he got from that was quiet snoring coming from beyond, so he had gone out and gotten something to eat, before crashing on the bed back in his room and falling asleep.

Now, as he opened the door, pistol at the ready, he was confronted with the sight of the young, bald man that had bought them to their rooms last night. He looked very frightened and had a bandage over his head.

"Sir, M-mister Grey, sir?" He asked tentatively.

"Yeah? What is it? What happened to you?"

"Sir, I regret to inform you, but last night while everyone was sleeping a group of men snuck in, laid me and my employer unconscious, and kidnapped your companions." He replied.

"What!?" Grey yelled.

"What do you mean? They're gone? _All_ of them?"

"Ye-yes sir. I've already contacted the Crevice City Security Forces, but the kidnappers seemed to have left a note for you." Taking out a small, crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket, the inn assistant gave it to Grey and left for the front desk.

Looking at the slip in his hands, Grey read, "It's just business, old pal."

He had just been told by the kidnappers themselves who had kidnapped his new apprentices. And he was going to have to get creative to get them back.

Sunset woke up once again, only this time, she was sitting down, tied to a chair, and from what she could see, she was in a medium-sized, office-like room with no windows. The others were there as well, similarly bound, and like herself, they were all gagged. Several more men who looked like greasers, no doubt part of the kidnapper's gang, were lounging around on couches or chairs, and one man was looking through the contents of a mini-fridge. In a corner of the room lay all of the girls' backpacks and personal things, piled up against the wall, along with Spike, who was muzzled and tied to a heating pipe beside the pile.

There was a door in the wall beside her, which opened for a second, and through it stepped the same man that had knocked on her door that morning. Past him came the sounds of music that would have been acceptable at a bar, or quiet nightclub, as well as the sounds of arguments and several people drunkenly singing.

Sunset then realized out of all the girls, she was the only one without a blindfold.

She watched in terror as the man walked up to her and crouched in front of her. All thoughts of how to escape this strange new place vanished as he looked her up and down, a menacing glint in his eyes.

"Lookie here, you're awake, huh?" he said in a silky voice.

"Well don't worry, we won't hurt you. You're going to be a delivery for a paying customer of ours. You should feel honored, he paid a high price for you girls.

Several more men came through the same door, filling the room, and making it just the tiniest bit cramped.

Standing up, the man did nothing more to the tied up teens, but went over to one of the other thugs and held a whispered conversation with him

Sunset managed to pick out a few bits of what they were saying.

"… ou mean he didn't… ell were is h… if he's much later I'll just take them as collat… yeah, I know the contract… course there's a time lim…"

Sunset used the opportunity to try and look behind her. Only being able to see a fraction past her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of rainbow-colored hair. Rainbow Dash was right behind her. Sidling up closer to the chair Rainbow Dash was in without causing any suspicion took a couple minutes.

When she finally felt her bound hands brush up against Rainbow Dash's, she nudged her to get her attention, but Rainbow didn't respond. Fearing she might be dead, she listened held her breath and listened carefully, and eventually heard the slight sound of Rainbow Dash breathing.

So she wasn't dead, just unconscious, _that's a relief,_ Sunset thought.

Suddenly a knocking could be heard from the door to the room. Some of the thugs pointed their guns at it, but the man who looked to be in charge calmly walked over to it, sipping from a drink, and opened it to the newcomer.

It was Grey.

This was obviously not the "customer" that the man was expecting, because at first sight of him, he spat out his drink and immediately reached for a pistol in his back pocket.

All of the kidnappers fanned out and surrounded Grey, weapons pointing at him from all directions as he stepped into the room, unfazed by the angry and incredulous men with guns around him. Instead he walked straight up to the leader, who had a look in his eyes that said he'd rather be anywhere but there at the moment.

Grey wasn't wearing his gas mask, but he did have his long overcoat and wide grey hat on.

"Cardley, what a pleasant surprise. I'm so grateful you found my apprentices for me. However, what are they doing tied up like this? I can only assume you just came here at the same time as I did and found them like this." He said in a calm voice, but Sunset heard the threatening menace in it.

"Grey! I, uhh, wasn't expecting to see you here. Why'd you come?" Cardley said.

"You know damn well why I'm here Cardley, now hand them over, or we're going to have a disagreement pretty soon."

"Ha, you old joker you. I see you got my note. You got it a little earlier than I expected, but it's all the same. The note _did_ say that this was just business. You're a businessman, can't you understand that?" Cardley asked.

"Oh yes, business is definitely business Cardley, I have absolutely no quarrels with you there, but since you kidnapped my apprentices, it's now my business to find out what your business is. And from the looks of things, you've gone back into slave trading, haven't you?" Grey growled. Sunset hadn't heard this tone in his voice before. Normally his voice was calm and level, if not bored sounding, but now it was low and grinded like the engine of a bulldozer. She heard a different Grey, and she really didn't think she wanted to see any more of it.

"Hey, it's the best paying job I've ever had, alright? And it comes with considerably low risk to myself, which is hard to come by in a job these days. Besides, I know you, you rarely have apprentices, and no one's crazy enough to take on seven at once. So since you're not having any fun with them, a client of mine contacted me last night and told me he wanted them. And trust me, there's no way you can negotiate your way out of this one, he offered more money than you could hope to overcome with any bribe. So just walk away for old time's sake, and we'll let you go." Cardley started relaxing as he talked, his stance had lost its tension and that evil smile had crawled its way back up onto his face.

"You're sure we can't make a business deal out of this?" Grey asked.

"Positive."

"Well then, I guess I've got no choice in the matter."

In an instant, Grey's hand was up at shoulder level, holding something, and he threw open the front of his coat. Everyone in the room responded, fingers tensing on triggers, until Cardley realized just what Grey had done.

"Stop! Hold your fire, I said hold it!" He screamed at the other thugs.

"He's gonna blow us up if we shoot!"

Underneath his coat, Grey had strapped several kilograms of explosives to himself, and in his hand held a small detonator. If he were to detonate it in a room the size of the one they were in at the moment, there wouldn't be enough of anyone left afterwards to be able to hold a funeral for.

Hell, Sunset Shimmer doubted everyone's remains would fit in a shoebox if those bombs went off.

"Didn't you hear me, goddamn it? I said put your guns down!" Cardley screamed at the top of his lungs.

Slowly, one by one, the other men lowered their weapons from Grey, who went over and put his free hand on Cardley's shoulder.

"Now, you're going to have your boys untie all the girls and give them their things back. Cardley nodded and his men went over to a corner to retrieve the teen's possessions.

Seeing Spike for the first time, Grey gave Sunset Shimmer a suspicious look, but said nothing, while they were all untied and brought to him. They were all awake now, Cardley's yelling having woken up any who were still unconscious at that point.

"Thank you. That's a good boy," Grey said to Cardley, making him go red in the face.

"Now, open the door. And all of you stay in here," Grey instructed the men, none of whom dared disobey him.

Before they managed to leave however, Cardley scrambled up behind them, his voice going shrill, "Come on man, come on! Why'd you have to take it so personally? It's just business, just business!"

"I agree, Cardley, you're right," said Grey. With one quick, fluid movement of his free hand, he pulled out his large-bore revolver and pointed it straight at the man's head. The last thing Cardley heard before a bullet seared through his brain and erased his entire being was, "It's just business."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

First Lessons and Events Put In Motion

The group of seven teenage girls collectively gasped as their kidnapper's brains blew out the back of his head in a red splatter. They barely had time to register their own shock before Grey had them running down a short hallway to a large, dimly-lit nightclub, while he covered them from the remaining thugs in the room.

Applejack was the first one into the main bar area, followed by the rest of the girls, who elicited wide-eyed stares from the drunk bar patrons as they passed. As Grey joined them, he pointed the group towards a service door set right beside the bar. When some of the onlookers finally realized what was happening, they started running towards the exits, or ducking for cover, though surprisingly, there was very little screaming.

Since Applejack was in the lead, when she got to the service door, she held it open for everyone else, but Grey, being the last one out, pushed her out before him, making sure none of the thugs were following, a few of them could be seen poking their heads out of the hallway where the group had just come from, but, to their credit, now that there was no gain for them to be made if Grey still decided to blow himself up, they didn't try to pursue the escapees.

Finding themselves out in a parking lot hemmed in on all sides by skyscrapers, Grey now led the way to the Fortress Buster, which stood parked near the exit they had come out of, still running. Opening the door, Grey quickly got into the driver's seat as the girls piled in after him. Checking to make sure no one was following them, Grey quickly pulled the bus out of the parking lot and smoothly transitioned into morning traffic on a large road.

Finally out of danger, Applejack let out a deep breathe she'd been holding before turning on Grey.

"Do you want to explain what in the _hay_ that was all about?"

"Which part?" Grey asked calmly.

"All of it! You killed someone and threatened to blow everyone up! Ah think we deserve an explanation as to what is goin' on here! Why were we kidnapped? An' how on earth did you know where to find us?" Applejack yelled, taking a deep breath to try to calm herself.

All of the girls, not just Applejack, were very upset, and shocked at the entire turn of events that had just happened.

"Alright, you want to know why? I killed Cardley because he crossed me for the second time. The first time he did it, I let him live, and gave him a warning. I threatened to blow everyone up," he said as he took off the explosive vest with one hand, "Because I wouldn't have been able to free you girls if I only had guns, because he would be able to turn it into a hostage situation. Also, these aren't real explosives. They're just blocks of plastic cut and painted to look like it. As for your third question, like you heard, Cardley had kidnapped you to sell you into slavery. It's a very unpleasant topic, but unfortunately, it's a legitimate industry here in the Territorial Areas. And finally, I knew where to find you because Jim Cardley is too stupid for his own good."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rainbow Dash questioned.

"The last time I saw Cardley was a little over a year ago, when he tried to steal from me. That was the time I let him off with a warning. Since then, I heard he had started leaving calling cards wherever he went and did "business." Since I've known him for a little while, it was easy to track him down to his most frequent trading spot. I hated that little monster, so I made sure not to make the same mistake twice."

"Have you lost your mind?" Sunset Shimmer exclaimed, "We have to go to the police! You killed someone!"

"And you were about to be sold off as someone's pet. Would you have preferred it if I had done nothing?"

"No, but you didn't have to kill him!" Rainbow Dash yelled, anger sparking in her eyes.

"I told you before," Grey started, "This is a dangerous world. Things like this happen on a daily basis all over the Territories, so you'd better get used to it."

"Every day?" Rarity asked quietly, "We could get kidnapped or killed every day?"

"Well you'd have to be extremely unlucky if it was happening to the same person on a daily basis and that person turned out to be you, but normally, dangerous situations like that happen once every one or two weeks on average," Grey explained.

"E-every w-w-week?!" Fluttershy gasped in fright.

"Don't worry, most people are smart enough to not bother me, and since you're with me, you shouldn't be bothered so often either, it's just the stupid ones you have to watch out for," Grey said.

As Grey pulled back into the parking lot of the inn where they were staying, Sunset realized how short they had been driving. She also noticed two heavily armored, identical black vehicles that hadn't been there before.

As soon as the Fortress Buster had been shut off, a handful of men and women in dark blue uniforms stepped out of the vehicles and strode towards it.

Pinkie Pie jumped out of the bus and ran towards them, with the rest of the girls in tow.

"Halt!" said the lead uniformed man, "What's going on here?"

"That guy just killed someone!" Pinkie screamed hysterically, "You're police officers, right? Arrest him!"

At that, the group of uniformed individuals drew pistols from their belts while the same man said, "This is Mike Hamilton, Crevice City Security Force, come out with your hands up!"

Much to Pinkie's surprise, Grey exited the bus, hands out on either side of his head, but there was a slightly annoyed look on his face.

"Stop right there!" The CCSF officer yelled, "Is what this girl said true? Did you murder a Crevice Citizen?"

"Yes, I killed someone. But he wasn't a Crevice Citizen, he was a freelance slave trader and he was the reason you were called out here."

"Explain," said one of the other officers.

"You were dispatched to this location because of a reported kidnapping, yes?"

"Yes, that's right," Officer Hamilton replied.

"Well then, you should know that these girls are my apprentices and they were the ones who were kidnapped. I killed the kidnapper and brought them back safely."

This time Officer Hamilton switched his gaze back to Pinkie Pie.

"Is this true? He saved you and you're trying to get him arrested?"

"Uh, wha-" Pinkie stammered, "Yeah, but he still killed a guy right in front of us! Does that mean nothing to you people?!"

"You'll have to forgive them officers. They were brought up to be very… sheltered. It's their first time in Crevice and they don't know how the laws work yet," Grey explained. He had dropped his arms and rejoined the group, since the CCDF officers had re-holstered their weapons.

"I understand," Officer Hamilton said with a smile, "It's happened a few times before. Well, we'll have to go clear things up with the inn's main desk to be sure, but since everything seems to be fine now, we'll be leaving shortly."

The groups of CCSF officers stared towards the inn and their oversized cars when one stopped and addressed Grey.

"By any chance sir, would you be Verdak Grey?"

"Yes I am," he replied to the pretty, young officer.

"I was just wondering," She said, "You're on the Merchant Council, right?"

"That is correct."

"Well, my brother's a vegetable farmer, and he's been having difficulty making enough money to support his family. I try to help him when I can, but a CCSF officer's salary isn't as much as you'd expect."

"What are you getting at?" Grey asked suspiciously.

"I just want to ask you, the Council Meeting is tomorrow, so please, could you try to do something about the issue of lowering the cost of produce trading? Please, it would help so many people, not just my brother and his family."

Grey took a moment, then replied slowly.

"I'll think about it. I don't know how much time and energy I'll be able to spend on the subject, but I'll think about it. I can't promise more than that."

"Of course. I understand how it is. Thank you."

With that, the female officer ran back to her vehicle and Grey walked to the group, herding them towards the inn, to confirm the story.

"I just have one request for you girls," he said, voice slow and level, "For future reference, _never_ , embarrass me like that again. Understand?"

The girls looked at him, a new understanding of the kind of life they would have to live forming in their minds.

It wasn't exactly one they wanted.

"Look I understand you girls are still mad and upset. Clearly people aren't allowed to kill each other over disputes where you come from, and it's understandable that it comes as a shock to you now, but in this world these things happen, and you're going to have to accept that."

They were back in the girls' room at the inn, Grey leaning against the door, and the seven girls had gathered on the two beds.

"Why should we accept it?" Applejack cried, "It's wrong! An' what if we start thinkin' it's a good idea to kill people? What then?"

"Don't get so defensive," Grey said, trying to calm her down.

"Ah'm not getting' defensive! Ah'm just afraid you'll turn us into soulless killin' machines."

"Listen, this world is deadly, and people kill each other in it. You have to accept that fact, but it doesn't mean you have to like it. You don't have to accept it into your personality. Does that make any sense?"

"Kinda," Applejack replied, "Ah'm gonna have to get used to people usin' guns to solve their problems, but we won't have to if we don't want to, right?"

"Exactly. I will teach you how to use guns and how to defend yourselves, because those skills are necessary in this world, but it will be up to each of you to decide how you want to use them."

"Well ah guess that's not so bad," Applejack said quietly.

"Alright, look. Now I know I may have lost the small amount of trust we've built so far, but we've got a lot of errands to do today, so we're going to have to move past the events that transpired this morning, and work on getting through the day. You said you would trade work for knowledge and experience from this world, so consider this your first lesson: everyone carries weapons because you can only count on yourself to protect yourself and solve your problems."

"Fine," Twilight said, "I wish it hadn't happened, this way, but he's right. Technically we are learning, so I guess we have to hold up our end of the deal."

"I'm glad to hear it," Grey replied, 'So, down to business. First things first, we have to eat breakfast. I know a good place within walking distance that has good Saturday Specials, or, if you want, we can go to an open market before they all close, buy something, and eat it back here. Your pick."

The girls all moved over to one bed to discuss it with hushed voices. While they did this, Grey looked at them incredulously, not believing they actually had to talk over the options for breakfast in private.

However it took only a few seconds, and a minute later, all eight of them, as well as Spike on a leash, were walking out of the inn and making their way down the sidewalk to a diner.

"So tell me, Twilight," Grey asked, "When were you planning on telling me you had a dog?"

"Um, well, I… uh," she stammered.

"You weren't planning on telling me about it at all, were you?"

"Well, I didn't really know how to tell you, I didn't know if you would get mad or something."

"The only reason I would get mad, is if it was obnoxiously loud and annoying, or if it was really big and costly to buy food for.

"So you won't make me or Spike leave?" Twilight asked.

"Spike?" Grey said, "Bit of a funny name, but no. Why would I make you leave? As long as you care for it and keep it under control, then I guess I can put up with buying food for it."

"So, Verdak," Rarity asked, "You said we would have work to do today after breakfast. Care to enlighten us as to what that might be? Just so you know, I don't do manual labour, unless it's connected to fashion."

"There shouldn't be much physical work today, but first off, I have some documents I need to print a few copies of, including a contract identifying each of you as my apprentices. Those we can get done at the Central Library," Grey began, before Twilight interrupted.

"A library! There's a library here? Why didn't you say so? This could help us get home! Can we take out the books? IS there a limit to how many books we can take out? How long will it take to get there? Where is it?" Twilight said, her barrage of rapid-fire questions catching Grey off-guard.

"Woah! Woah, woah!" Grey exclaimed, "Slow down there, Twilight. One question at a time. First off, yes, you can take out books under my name, I have an account with the library. Secondly, whaaaat?"

Taking a deep breath, Twilight calmed herself, then started restating her questions and talking slower.

"Why didn't you tell us about the library earlier? It could have useful information that could help us get home."

"Alright," Grey said, "There are two reasons. Number one: The library has a very small section that contains magic, and number two: I only met you girls yesterday, and it was only yesterday evening when we decided to work together. And even so, I was planning on going there today anyway, so it's not like we could have saved a lot of time if I had told you earlier."

"Ok, I see your point there," Twilight concluded, "Then how long are we going to be able to spend at the library?"

"Forget about that already Twilight," Pinkie piped up, "What else do we have to do after that?"

"Well, I have to go to the Grand Trade Exchange Center, I've got to visit my Vault, check my mail, teach you girls a bit about the geography of the Territorial Areas, and in the evening there are a few contacts I've got to meet with. Oh yeah, and we've got to discuss tomorrow's Merchant Council Meeting sometime during the day."

"That's it?" Rainbow Dash scoffed, "With our help, you'll be done all that stuff before noon!"

Grey just looked at her, a blank expression on his face.

"You have no idea how long the whole kidnapping thig took, do you?" Grey asked.

"Well, it couldn't have taken _that_ long, it felt like just a few minutes."

"That's because, from what you've told me, you girls were unconscious for most of it."

"So?" Rainbow demanded.

"So, it's almost 10:30 and we haven't even eaten anything this morning yet."

The group had just finished crossing a street when Grey said, "Ah, here we are."

They were in front of a low, white, unimpressive diner, with a sign that said _The Lacy Plate_.

"This is where we're eating?" Rainbow Dash said, obviously unimpressed with the establishment.

"If you don't like the look of it, you're welcome to skip breakfast," Grey shot back.

No one argued with him after that.

"Wow! Look at this place!"

"Just get inside already, people are starting to stare," Grey said, but Twilight still wouldn't budge from in front of the giant library.

It was a huge thing, towering high above ground level in a steep pyramid, all grey-blue steel and reflective glass, making the whole building look like a rainbow shone across it whenever the taller buildings around it allowed some sunlight to strike its walls.

The rest of the group were standing just inside the doorway, awkwardly trying not to block it as they waited for their friend to wake up from her trance. Finally, Grey actually had to pick up Twilight and sling her over his shoulder to carry her inside the glass building.

"Ok! Ok! I get it, put me down!" Twilight sighed.

At the same time as she was struggling to get Grey to put her down, Spike started growling at him. Thankfully Fluttershy stepped in to calm him down, and, with a few pointed stares from other people in the library, they moved over to a desk set against one wall, one of many where people were talking to clerks, and Grey spoke to a professional-looking man with a huge walrus mustache and broad shoulders.

The man agreed to photocopy several documents that Grey handed to him, and when he came back, Twilight popped out from behind Grey's shoulder and asked if they had any books that had anything to do with magic.

"Magic, eh? Well, not too many people come here looking for anything on that, but, let's see… ninth floor, left wing," he responded.

As Twilight spotted the stairs and bolted off for them, Rarity started after her, but Grey held her back.

"Hey, what is it? Why aren't we following her?"

"She's got heart, but I'm not about to travel up nine flights of stairs." He pointed to a series of long, vertical tubes. "Let's take the elevator."

After standing in the glass tubular elevator for just a few seconds after pressing the floor button labeled 9, everyone but Grey was either forced into a crouch, or fell against one another as the elevator accelerated upwards and reached the ninth floor. The whole trip up nine storeys took about 7 seconds, and when the door opened, the girls spilled out and immediately picked themselves up again, trying to look like they had done it on purpose.

"Come on, girls. Quit acting like you're the coolest shit this side of the Hooded Woods," Grey said, walking over to the stairs, "C'mon, we can wait for Twilight by the stairs."

Twilight finally appeared about a minute later, huffing for air as she climbed the final step. In her excitement, she hadn't even noticed that no one had followed her, so when she saw everyone else standing in front of her, her legs gave way, and her jaw hit the floor. Spike, who she had been pulling along up the stairs, took the opportunity to finally sit down and take a breather.

No sooner had the other girls finished explaining the fact that there was an elevator behind them and Twilight had finished feeling stupid about it that she dragged the whole group off to the left wing.

As soon as she spotted the area that she had been looking for, she completely forgot about her friends and rushed straight to the nearest shelf and started going through book titles. Taking a moment to thank whatever mystical magic the portal possessed that the world they were in used the same language and alphabet as the one she knew, Twilight looked and started picking books out of the shelf, and within a few minute, the other girls joined her.

"Geez, you couldn't have gotten more books, Twilight?" Grey grunted.

They were all weighed down by multiple large volumes that Twilight had taken out of the library, and Grey silently thought to himself, _Thank fuck I parked close to the library entrance, all these books weigh more than the damn Fortress Buster's engine_.

As soon as they were all on board the bus, Grey closed the door, and everyone deposited, or rather, unceremoniously dumped their bags of books on the table in the booth.

No prompting needed, Twilight immediately picked up a book, dusted it off, and started leafing through it, trying to find clues as to their sudden dimensional translation into the world they were currently in.

Applejack walked with Grey back up front (actually, they just walked more up front, the booth was, as stated before, only a couple meters back from the driver's seat), where he started the machine and pulled onto the now-busy city road.

"So, where are we headin' now, did ya say?" Applejack asked.

"My Vault."

"Uhm, and what exactly is that?"

"You don't know what a Vault is?" Grey gave her an incredulous look.

"Ah know what a _vault_ is, but the way yo're sayin' it makes me think that it ain't the same thing Ah'm thinkin' of."

"Alright, fair enough, I'll explain. There's a Vault in every city. Well, technically they're called Safety Deposit and Personal Storage Vaults, but that's basically what one is. You pay a monthly fee, and you get your own vault at the Vault. It's your personal storage facility, and only you or someone with proved written permission are allowed access to it. You can put whatever you want in it, and it's totally secure. Larger Vaults have higher monthly fee, but that's to be expected. You pay them, they keep your stuff safe. That's pretty much it."

"Oh, so it's kind o' like a bank?" Applejack asked.

"Bank? Oh hell no. There hasn't been an operational bank for nearly fifty years. They're so corrupt and conniving that everyone stopped trusting Banks to hold their money decades ago. Now people use Vaults for that," Grey explained.

"But, don't they do the same theng then?"

"Oh, dear heavens, no! Banks charge you money to keep your money in them, but they also give out loans, offer business transactions, and print money to keep dying Governments alive. Now, banks don't have money to start off with, so if they're going to give away money, where does the money come from? Well, let's see, they have cash boxes and machines full of customers' money, so they give that away, and when the customer wants to take money out, guess what? They can't. So Banks lost the trust of the people a long time ago, and for the business of keeping things safe from being stolen, Vaults were founded."

"Ah see."

Applejack wanted to press the issue, but again, surprisingly, they had already arrived at the Vault, a huge metal building that looked more like a nuclear bunker than a bank. When they entered, Grey was guided by a man dressed in all white from the front desk, into the bowels of the dimly-lit fortress, while the rest of the girls were forced to stay in the lobby and await his return.

When he eventually did, he didn't seem to be carrying anything, and he hadn't appeared to have dropped anything off, but soon enough they were on their way to several small bars and post offices, picking up letters for all sorts of reasons, from job offers to death threats, and from dull payment reminders to copies of new fiction novels.

Grey had to write a return letter for most of them, so by the time they were done all that it was just past 1:00.

"Hey girls," Grey started as he bought several loaves of bread and skewers that contained what looked like chunks of meat but had the taste and texture of sauce-covered rice from a nearby food stall, and shared them with all of the girls.

"I was thinking, we've made a bit of time, so while we eat, I can finally start teaching you girls some stuff for real. Come on over to the booth and you can relax and enjoy the food, and you'll also have the map on the wall as a visual guide."

After they had all settled down in the booth on the Fortress Buster and Grey had pulled up a collapsible chair from out of nowhere, he took out a short sword, whose scabbard had been strapped to his thigh the entire time, and directed their attention to the map, which hung on the wall opposite him.

"Now, you're in what's known as the Territorial Areas. It's called that because every City, Town, Stronghold, every independent family, every scavenger, has laid claim to some part of it. The parts you see in beige," he pointed to a particularly large spot that covered most of the center of the map, "Are called the Wastelands. That's terrain that's either too dangerous, or not valuable enough for anyone to have claimed it. You might also hear it referred to as No Man's Land. That's because, since it's outside anyone's Territory, it's completely uncontested, and everyone uses the patches of Wasteland freely. The reason this is a problem is that there are no laws of any kind in those parts, and dangerous pirates, bandits, and scavengers prey on anyone that crosses into their line of sight. Now I found you girls around here." He tapped a section just on the inside of a beige smear.

"And as you can see, the Star just over here represents Crevice. Now, these light green areas you see over to the western and southern areas of the map are still nearly as dangerous as the Wastelands, and you can see Crevice is in one, but this means that the land is either fertile, or has grasslands and small woods growing there. Before I go on, one thing I forgot to mention about the Wastelands, is that they're mostly rock deserts or badlands.

"So yeah, that brings us to the dark green areas. This place here," Grey pointed his sword at a patch of dark green just north of Crevice, "Is just a regular forest. It's got wolves, tall trees, some berry bushes and the like, but this over here," he motioned to a huge expanse of green that spread horizontally across half of the northern section of the map.

"This, is Carnival Forest. Don't let the name fool you, it's home to all sorts of hellish creatures, and a Warlord, Gruffbirch, claimed a large section of it as his own two years back. Never go there unless you want to be assured death."

"What's that light red area over there?" Pinkie Pie asked, pointing to a nearly circular spot, a bit east of the Wastelands where Grey had showed them that they had met there. The pinkish-red splotch was completely surrounded by large stretches of Wastelands.

"That, Pinkie, is the Dustbowl. It's a huge type of valley, almost like a crater, that has a few abandoned towns in it, and it's extremely dangerous. Some of the lower areas are filled with deadly gas, others deadly animals, others contain deadly roaming gangs, and most of it is covered by a sandstorm at almost any time. That's why it's called the Dustbowl."

"Uhh, what's this?" Rainbow Dash asked, tapping a large, bruise-purple, rectangular section that covered the entire southeast corner of the map.

"That, is the Quarantine Belt. It actually extends much farther than it shows on the map, it goes beyond the border of the map and is about double the length of what you see here. It's extremely dangerous there, and the Quarantine Wall that surrounds the whole place is about 20 meters high and was finished nearly seven years ago. It's extremely difficult to get inside, and with good reason. Everything inside the Quarantine Belt wants to kill you. So don't go there, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

"This here," he pointed his short sword to a small green spot just to the left of the Quarantine Belt, "is a small area called Cannibal Swamp. Very dangerous, never go here. This place is home to these sick, twisted, inbred freaks that make traps to capture anyone that enters the swamps and then they carve them up and eat them, sometimes while the victim is still alive."

"What are they?" Applejack asked with a tremble in her voice.

"They're human, barely. They've degraded into near-mindless monsters, but their traps are cruel and cunning, you don't want to go into that swamp. Ever.

"Now, I'm sure you're wondering what these are," Grey pointed to triangles that ran across the map in clusters.

"These here are mountains, and this giant stretch near the top, that's the Void Mountain Range. I personally stay away from there. Yes, there are people who can use magic there, but they're extremely secluded and highly dangerous. They don't take kindly to outsiders. I wouldn't recommend we go there until you girls have had some time to learn survival skills for this world and you've learned to defend yourselves."

"Finally, anyplace you see denoted by black, like this section here by the coast," he motioned to the southwestern corner of the map, where the map was predominantly colored black, "means that that area is Glassland."

"What's a Glassland? It sounds like it's either very strange or simply stunning," Rarity said.

"Oh you're right, to an extent. It is stunning, but not in the way you're thinking. Glasslands aren't made up of crystal palaces and glass boulevards or whatever it may be you're imagining right now. No, a Glassland forms from a Hyper-Fission Explosion, most of the time Nuke detonations. When a nuclear bomb goes off, it melts the ground and when it cools off, it everything in the vicinity is left behind as a charcoal-black, jagged, glass-filled crater. Well it's not actually glass, but it's a similar substance, because instead of melted sand, it's melted everything else. Surprisingly, they aren't as dangerous as some other areas, mainly because there's no food, water, or resources of any kind and people have no reason to go into one of the blast craters."

"Alright," Grey concluded as the group finished eating their lunches.

"I think that's about all we need to go over for this time. Next time I can show you the location and territories of all the independent factions and Warlords that live outside the cities. Any questions?"

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash started, "Is there anywhere that _doesn't_ want to kill us?"

"Well, ruling out my properties, umm… no. Not really. There's nowhere really _safe_ , some places are just safer than others."

"Hey, you said this mountain range up here has people who can use magic, right?" Twilight asked, "Why don't they like visitors?"

"Well, see that's kind of the thing. Not many people have contact with them, so nobody really knows, but in a world like this, you don't need a reason to want to keep to yourself. All I know about them are the rumors, and the rumors are that they can use dark magic, they kill almost all who come near, they live in the frozen wastes of the Void Mountains, and because of that last part they're referred to as Void Walkers. Any more questions?"

Grey looked around expectantly, and to his surprise, Fluttershy raised her hand.

"Yes, what is it-? Er, I'm sorry, you don't talk much, so I've forgot your name."

"My name's Fluttershy, remember? And I was just wondering, when you said we have to learn to defend ourselves and learn to shoot, how are we going to do that? Are we going to practise on-?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, it's not what you're thinking. Like we discussed earlier today, you're not going to be shooting anyone you don't want to, unless they're going to kill you and you have no other choice. But no, I'll teach you shooting and hand-to-hand combat in professional environments. You won't have to hurt living things. I've noticed how much you seem to like watching the pets that people own. Anything else?"

By this time, the girls had all but finished their meals, and they all looked at each other. Seeing that no one else really had any concerns, they all shook their heads.

"Alright, now then," Applejack said, "if we're gonna be doin' the rest of these things you had to have finished by the end o' the day, then I think it's abou' time we got going again. What was the next thing on yer list you said?"

"Eh, we've got to go to the Grand Trade Exchange Center. It's the building in Crevice where all of the big and important and commercial trading gets done. You'll know it when you see it."

"Wow!"

A collective gasp of awe could be heard from the group of girls as they beheld the spectacle before them.

"And this, girls, is why the city is called Crevice," Grey explained.

They had driven right to the center of the city, and there, stretching before them, was a huge rift right in the middle of the street. It was several city blocks across, and ran in either direction, as far as could be seen, until it was cut off by the towering buildings crowding in from either side.

That wasn't even the part that had taken the groups' breath away. As the ground disappeared into a jagged hole into the earth, levels had been hollowed out to make giant floors descending down into the rift, with bridges criss-crossing the gaps, and buildings descending vertically, straight through the rock.

"Wowie!" Pinkie exclaimed, "This place looks like we're on top of a giant shelf! And those buildings look like books that are on the shelves!"

"Yes, well, be careful not to wander too close to the edge when we get out," Grey said, navigating the Fortress Buster across a packed bridge on the topmost level.

"Now, we're only going to spend a little bit of time here today, but we'll be coming back tomorrow, so I want you all to stay here in the bus while I'm gone. I will need your help in a little while, but not immediately. Is everyone okay with that?"

A collective groan could be heard from the group of girls as they confronted the idea of having to stay cooped up in the vehicle instead of being able to explore the amazing new portion of the city they were visiting.

"Yeah, I know you all love the idea. Now stay inside and be good, and I'll tell you something interesting when I get back."

Grey parked the bus in a huge parking lot, overlooked by a massive building. As he was walking towards it, the girls had their faces plastered to the armored windows, trying to see the top.

Near the ground, the building resembled an ornate palace, with huge stone walls, towers overlooking a courtyard that could just barely be seen inside a well-fortified gate, huge marble pillars holding up balconies and glass domes covering sections of the roof. However, after that, straight out of the center of the palace part, rose one of the biggest skyscrapers that the city had to offer, with sharp-edged corners and deep blue windows framing every side. The as they looked up the building, it slanted inward, each floor just a little smaller than the one below it.

After a few minutes of staring at the building, the girls eventually pulled themselves from the windows, and sat back down at the table. Before Twilight could open the book she had been reading, Pinkie gave an exasperated sigh, and fake-fainted on the table.

"Uhhh, I can't take it anymore! I'm so _bored!_ "

"Pinkie," Twilight said, trying to pull her book out from under the party girl, "Verdak's only been gone five minutes, how can you be bored already?"

"Yeah, well, I am, ok? Ooh, I know what we can do until he gets back!" she said, jumping up, "we still don't really know much about this bus, and if we're going to be living here when we're not in a city, why don't we go exploring? We can explore the inside of the bus and see what cool stuff he has in here!"

"I don't know, Pinkie. That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Verdak did say not to touch anything without his permission," Sunset reminded her.

"Yeah, ah'm pretty shore he wouldn't take too kindly to us snoopin' aroun' here, plus he did say if we're not careful we could blow something up, and ah don't want tuh take that risk," Applejack warned.

"Aww, you guys are no fun. We won't touch anything, we'll just take a look around."

"I'm with Pinkie," Rainbow Dash said, "I wouldn't mind knowing a little more about our new "business partner". And you can tell a lot about someone from their stuff. I second taking a peek around."

"Alrighty-tighty! Let's go!" and before Sunset Shimmer could stop them, Pinkie and Rainbow had gotten up from the booth and moved deeper into the bus.

Moving to catch them, Sunset, Applejack and Rarity got up as well.

Rainbow Dash was inspecting a strange lightbulb-like contraption that sat in a niche in the starboard wall, while Pinkie was opening a door to one of the many small rooms on the other side of the offset hallway.

"Pinkie! What are you doing? Verdak said not to touch anything!" Sunset said urgently.

"Oh relax, Sunset, I don't think a _door_ is going to be able to do any harm, do you?"

"Maybe it's booby-trapped!"

"Hah! Wouldn't that be so _cool?!_ " Pinkie laughed.

"No, no it would not," Rarity replied.

"Woah!"

Just then, Rainbow Dash had touched the lightbulb-thingy and it had turned on. It was about a half a meter long, with a yellow target-like reticle right in the middle of the bulb, and four long, flat, spar-like structures projecting out from the back of the light by about a meter and a half each. A small, complex structure stood out from the back of the lightbulb-like part, and two small, thin metal booms lay folded up against the underside of the body of the contraption. When it turned on, its target glowed bright yellow and it slowly moved itself out of the niche in the wall, staying completely still, and hovered above the ground at waist level.

Before anyone could say anything, the two booms underneath it extended downwards and resolved themselves into little mechanical hands with three fingers each. The four spars sprang open to look like wasp wings, and the lightbulb moved around in its socket, to shine at each of them in turn.

"What did you do?" Sunset Shimmer whispered to Rainbow Dash through gritted teeth.

"I don't know! But I'm not sure I want to find out."

"Hello!" spoke a cheery, male, mechanical voice.

The sound came from the floating lightbulb-machine and made everyone assembled there jump. Twilight and Fluttershy, watching from the booth, simply stared at the contraption, their jaws open in shock.

"Y-you can talk?" Rainbow Dash asked tentatively.

The floating bug-machine turned to face her, rising up to eye level before answering.

"Why yes, have you never seen a fire-control maintenance drone before?" It replied.

"Umm, no actually, I haven't."

"Huh, how curious. You are Grey's new apprentices, aren't you? He told me about you this morning. Is there something you require then? Anything on the bus that need fixing?"

"N-not that ah know of," Applejack answered.

"Well then, why did you activate me?" the little robot asked.

"I didn't mean to! I was just curious as to what you were," Rainbow replied.

"Oh, well that's a bit boring. If you don't need anything then I'll be powering down again until I'm needed."

"Wait!" Sunset yelled, "I know something you can do."

"With all due respect ma'am, I am a maintenance drone. I have no other uses."

"Can you tell us a bit about Grey, and all the stuff that's on this bus?"

Grey walked through the high halls of the Grand Trade Exchange Center, a very specific destination in mind. Getting to the elevator, he rode it all the way to the top floor, which was 119 floors above ground level.

As the elevator dinged and he stepped out, he saw a landing, decorated only with chairs pulled up against the walls and a single desk beside a pair of doors on the opposite side.

Crossing over to the desk, he waited patiently for the young lady behind it to finish whatever paperwork she was currently working on. When she finished, she looked up and politely asked what he was there for.

"I need to talk with Gold. I don't have an appointment, but we need to speak immediately, it's urgent," he replied.

"I'm sorry sir, but Mr. Gold is in a meeting at the moment. He'll be done in a few minutes, until then, could you please take a seat and wait?"

Grey listened intently in the silence that followed for a few moments, as he heard tiny muffled voices on the other side of the wooden double doors, then said, "I think I'll see him now," and with that he moved quicker than the secretary could have predicted, closing the distance to the door before she could even stand. As Grey opened the door and walked in, he saw there were three people inside the room, all gathered at the close end of a long conference table. All three looked up at him, and the secretary who was right behind him.

"Ms. Willow, I thought I said we were not to be disturbed!" Yelled a tall, broad-chested man with long, blond hair.

"Well, yes Mr. Gold, but see, he just barged in here, I couldn't stop him!" she cried.

Mr. Gold was about to yell because of the intrusion when he recognized Grey.

"G-Grey? What are you doing here? And why didn't you wait? You can clearly see I'm in the middle of something very important. You're usually so patient, what happened?"

"I heard through the door what you were talking about. And that's the reason I came to see you sir."

"Wait, you mean magic?" Mr. Gold asked.

"Yes, sir. It's becoming more prominent."

"Yes, I know that. That's why Mr. Amber and Ms. Lavender came to see me as well. They claim that the number of magical users and magical intrusions into our world are increasing."

"I don't know what they have told you, but in my most recent trip I was attacked by someone using magic to re-create the Insanity Plague, and just a few days ago, when I was returning, I came across a group of people who had stumbled into our world. They came through via a magic portal in their world. This cannot be ignored any longer, we have to start taking this seriously," Grey explained.

"Wait, what? Y-you mean, there are dimensional rifts appearing?"

"Not so. This rift was caused by tampering of these users on their end, but the fact that they managed to come through completely unchanged proves that there is now enough magic in our world to sustain radical changes like this. I haven't seen them use magic yet, I just met them yesterday, but there's no doubt, they know nothing about our world because they came from a different one."

"Do you have proof?" the man called Mr. Amber asked, suspiciously.

"Not with me, but I took out my dimensional frequency scanner from my Vault," he said while withdrawing a small, hand-held device that looked like a miniature toaster, "So I'll most likely have it by tomorrow, in time for the Merchant Council Meeting. You have to start a motion for greater research about this tomorrow, and no later. If this isn't given Day One priority, it might not even be considered until next month's meeting."

"I-I, I see," Mr. Gold replied, "I guess we have no choice now."

"… But from what I've interacted with him, Mr. Grey is almost always a very calm, patient man, and he's always business," said the Maintenance Drone.

"Well, he _seems_ okay," Rainbow Dash started, "But he's kind of, what's the word I'm looking for…"

"Unapologetic?" Twilight offered.

"Yeah! Unapologetic, that's the word! He doesn't seem sorry for anything he does and he's pretty serious. Do you know why?" Rainbow asked.

"It's because that's how my personality works," Came Grey's voice from the doorway, "I'm very into business and what I can do to benefit, but I don't always use my emotions as often as other people do."

Grey was standing just inside the bus, leaning against the wall.

"How long 'ave ya been standin' there?" Applejack asked.

"Just got here. I see you've woken up Scrapper. He's my Maintenance Drone, though he specializes in fixing and keeping in working order the Fire-Control Computer Brain on board this bus. But now I'm back, so _you_ ," he pointed at the strange robot, "Can power down now, and you girls can help me now."

"Help you with what?" Fluttershy asked.

"Well, a bus this big and heavy, it's going to need a lot of maintenance, and I needed to replenish my fuel stores. I've already paid for it, but I bought 16 Jerry Cans of Diesel fuel. I need your girls' help to bring it from the merchant I bought it from, back to here. You all ready?"

"Yeah," the girls said collectively as Scrapper folded himself back up and floated back into his little niche.

The merchant Grey had bought the fuel from was situated at the rear of the Grand Trade Exchange Center, and as the group walked through the palace-like ground level halls of the building, they stared and gasped and gaped at everything they could lay their eyes on. All the types of contraptions, inventions, food, clothes, robots, weapons, books, minerals, metals, plants, animals, and even vehicles for sale inside the massive building seemed almost like too much for the seven girls to take in all at once, but soon enough they were at a large fuel truck that was just casually parked between two small concession-like shops.

The merchant there gave Grey a quick curt nod, and the eight of them started filling up the two empty Ferry Cans they had each brought with them, until all sixteen were full, after which they all lugged them back to the bus. After a few trips, slips, and much needed breaks from carrying the heavy tanks around, the group made it back the Fortress Buster, where Grey climbed onto the roof and began lashing all of the fuel cans together securely.

"Alright, now I'm sure you're wondering what it is I was going to tell you, so I'll get right to it," Grey started.

"Actually, we kind of forgot about it, we were listening to what your robot could tell us about you," Pinkie burst out.

"Oh, well. He doesn't actually know all that much about me. He's a maintenance drone, he's not interested in knowing more about me."

"Whatever," Sunset dismissed the subject, "What was it you wanted to tell us?"

"Tomorrow is the Merchant Council Meeting. It's a large meeting held once a month here in Crevice, right at the Grand Trade Exchange Center, where the fifty merchants who are elected by the council to be on it, discuss the economy, business, and all of the interesting news from around the Territorial Areas. We decide on pretty much all of the issues that are important to the economy of the city and other areas that are coming up in the next month. Now, I'm telling you this, because you girls could learn how to be good merchants and dynamic thinkers if you accompany me. Now you are allowed to come with me, since you're my apprentices, but the rule is, only one apprentice, bodyguard, or translator is allowed to come with any Merchant Member. I want to know if anyone is volunteering for it. The meeting takes three days, six hours a day, and it can be one of the greatest insights into the workings of a merchant available. So, who wants to come?"

The lack of reaction from any of the girls really hit Grey, and he just stood there, a shocked blank look on his face. However it only took a moment for him to regain his composure, and when he did, he said, "Someone is coming with me tomorrow, whether they want to or not. I'm not leaving all of you alone inside the Fortress Buster for six hours a day for three days, so either someone volunteer or I'll pick someone."

"Why does one of us have to come with you?" Rarity asked.

"Because I don't exactly trust you girls to all behave yourselves while I'm gone, so you could call it… insurance. I know you won't try to steal my bus and all of the stuff on it without one of your friends, so…" Grey looked around, "Rainbow Dash, you're coming with me."

"What!? Why me? I don't want to go!" She protested.

"You're the one who likes and trusts me the least and you seem to have trouble listening whenever I'm explaining something, so maybe you'll learn something during these next few days."

"Aww, but-"

"No complaining. If no one's going to want to come, then you are, whether you want to or not, because I don't care about it all that much."

Rainbow Dash was about to argue, but Sunset Shimmer shot her a look, and her argument died in her throat.

"Fine," Rainbow said, "You win, I'll go, but if it's really boring, don't expect me to stay awake."

"Fair enough," Grey replied.

"Oh, before we go," Sunset said, "umm, this place buys and sells, like, everything, right?"

"Pretty much," Grey replied.

"Well then, uh, I don't mean to sound needy or anything, but, we don't have any clothes other than the ones we're wearing, and, how to put this, we need… _lady things_ , if you know what I mean."

Grey gave her a blank stare for a second and then his eyes opened wide for a second before his face returned to its default bored look.

"Oh, yeah. Ok, yes I know what you mean. Alright then, let's go, but I'm not buying you girls anything too expensive. Only what's necessary, deal?"

"Deal." Sunset responded, then whispering to Rainbow Dash, she said, "Sorry you have to do this tomorrow, but if you had argued too much he might not have agreed to get us new clothes and stuff."

"Yeah," she whispered back, "I understand, and you're right, I just hope it won't be too hard to learn, whatever it is he wants me to learn from a bunch of old guys at a meeting."

So the group went back to the Grand Trade Exchange Center, and when they had that done, it was time to meet with Grey's "contact". The eight of them went to a bar, and while Grey insisted he sit alone for the meeting with his "contact" he made the rest of the girls sit in the next booth so they could observe and listen to what would be going on.

After a half hour, during which the girls were told not to order anything too expensive, a very attractive young woman with vibrant red hair and bright green eyes came in and the meeting began.

"Grey! Oh, it's been so long! You look like you have something to share," said the woman.

"Scarlet, as always, you're too kind, and you're right," Grey replied, a sincere smile on his face, one that vanished as soon as he saw his contact's companion.

"Grey, always a pleasure to see you!" said a reedy-looking man in a crocodile skin jacket and snakeskin boots.

"Jade, you asshole. It's always horrible to see you too. Figured out just how bad of a business it is you're in?" Grey snarled back.

"Hey, don't insult my intelligence, Grey. I came here to see you as a friend."

"We've never been friends, Jade, we're rivals, enemies, and I really fucking hate you, so I will insult you in whichever way I find most entertaining."

"Well, just because whenever we compete, you always lose, it doesn't mean you have to be a sore loser."

"Lose? It's impossible to win, because when as soon as your plans start failing you try and drag down everyone else with you. Whenever someone does dealings with or against you, everybody ends up worse off!"

"Scarlet, I believe it was a mistake to bring me here. Obviously Grey still feels petty about our relationship and is in no mood to reconcile."

"You want me to reconcile? That's what you wanted to meet me about? Fine. I'll reconcile when this giant overstuffed snake of an oaf repays me for the twenty thousand auto-aiming chips he stole from me and then _accidentally_ blew up a year ago," Grey said, his anger making his voice into a sandpaper growl. He was even angrier than the girls had ever seen him, however, he didn't shoot anyone or even draw a weapon. After his final outburst, he simply drew himself up, and left the bar without another word. He did glance to the group as he passed them on his way to the door, so a few minutes after, they got up without ordering anything and followed him out.

Back on the Fortress Buster, Grey started apologizing.

"I'm sorry girls, I thought that Scarlet would have useful information for me. Whenever we've met before, she always give me info about the upcoming meeting, or some new business opportunity, and I do the same for her about what I know, but I guess Jade managed to get into her head, make her think he actually wanted to fix the relationship he had with me."

"And he doesn't?" Fluttershy asked, "He seemed like he wanted to be friends."

"Yeah, he seemed that way. Trust me, in this business, you have to learn how to tell when people are lying. And I've known him long enough that even with his most sincere looks and his cleverest silver-tongued lies, I can tell that he's always up to no good." Grey explained.

"So, there's no way you two are ever going to be friends?"

"Not if he's got anything to say about it. And besides, he's lost me incredible amounts of money since I've met him. He's one of the least-liked people on the Merchant Council, and he tries to swindle me every time we see each other."

"Wait, he's on the Council too?" Rarity gasped, "Does that mean-?"

"Yes, Scarlet is also on the council. I should probably explain how that works before tomorrow."

He motioned for them to sit down in the booth, and then when they were all seated

"There are fifty people on the Council, each one a very distinguished merchant. Now, each one is elected by the members of the council whenever there is an opening. This happens whenever someone dies or misses three meetings in a row. Based on the vacancy and the candidates being considered, the new member takes the place of the old one. Also, the members are represented by colors and shades. Forty of the members are denoted by colors, the other ten by shades. Scarlet and Jade happen to be colors, and I, being Grey, am a shade. Now the jobs of colors and shades are slightly different. People who are represented by colors are people who bring ideas to the table of how to make more money in business ventures. They also bring important information about the economic activity and stability of many different cities and territories, as well as propose motions to be voted on by the Council that change how different kinds of businesses are run. You remember that cop who asked me to talk about lowering the Gate Transport Price of vegetables being brought into the city? That's one of the kinds of issues that are brought up and voted on. Now shades have it a bit different. Shades, anywhere from white to grey to black, also bring in information on the affairs of the world, and we also get to put place ideas on how to adjust industries for the next month, however, we're not allowed to vote for anything. Instead, before anyone can vote, the shades have to decide whether the issues are important enough to be voted on, and whether they are too dangerous or underhanded to be put into practice. Also, shades aren't allowed to take sides with colors. In other words, we aren't allowed to have predisposed opinions about any of the proposals, so that we present a fair, unbiased decision on whether it should go through or not."

Grey looked around at the girls as they tried to make sense of what he had just said. After a little while Rainbow Dash spoke up.

"So… I'm going to have to learn about all that tomorrow? What are the others going to do?"

"Okay," Grey said, "No, you are not going to have to learn all about that tomorrow, I want you to pay more attention to the dealings going on and how they're made during the course of the meeting. For the rest of you, I have a little surprise planned tomorrow, and trust me, you'll be fine. It'll be interesting is all I'll say. Now, let's get back to the inn."

Back at the inn, the girls were in their room, changing into the pajamas that Grey had bought for them earlier that day, while Grey was in his own room.

Sunset had just finished putting her PJs on when a knock came at the door. Sunset Shimmer froze, instantly remembering what had happened that morning, so when she went over to the door, which had been locked for privacy, she made sure to keep the chain on it, which only allowed it to open a crack. Fortunately Grey was standing on the other side of it this time. Sunset moved so that her body blocked most of the room through the crack while the other girls were changing.

"I'm sorry to bother you girls right before you got to sleep, but I need to talk to Rainbow Dash for a moment. Is she in there?"

"She's in the bathroom right now, why do you need her, can't it wait until morning?"

"Not exactly," Grey replied, "But if she's busy then I can wait until she's done. Just tell her to come see me after. I'll be right out here."

"Of course," Sunset replied, before closing the door again.

 _That was weird,_ she thought, _why is he acting different, and why does he need to talk to Rainbow while we're in our pyjamas? Couldn't he have talked to her sooner?_ She didn't have time to formulate an idea, because just then, Rainbow Dash came out of the bathroom in the back and Sunset walked over to deliver the message.

"Hey, Rainbow Dash, Grey wanted to talk with you, he's waiting in the hallway."

Before the other girl could move however, Sunset grabbed her arm and whispered, "Hey, be careful, k? He was acting a little bit weird just now."

"Yeah, like he's not weird normally," Rainbow dismissed.

Stepping out into the dark hallway, Rainbow Dash found herself face-to-face with Grey. She hadn't realized, until she was this close, how tall he was, and in the dim lighting, he looked quite intimidating.

"Y-you wanted to talk to me?" she asked, trying not to look and sound frightened.

"Yes, it's about tomorrow. I just want to remind you that you are my apprentice and you're there to learn. That means no interrupting, no arguing and no being rude, alright? I'll handle the talking, because that's the whole point of me being there, so you just focus on watching and listening and trying to understand as much as you can when you're there, alright?"

Relaxing a bit, now that she knew what this suspicious conversation was about, she said, "Yeah, fine, no problem. Anything else you wanted to tell me? I'm gettin' pretty tired, so it's time for me to hit the hay. Like you said, we've got a big day tomorrow, right?"

"Yes, there is one other thing. Because you're my apprentice, you're going to need something to identify yourself as being under my supervision, so during the meeting, the whole time we're there, I want you to wear this," Grey said, holding up a grey respirator.

"What, why?"

"Well actually, it's also partly for safety. There have been a few assassination attempts during past meetings, so anything that will make you more likely to wake up the next morning is a good idea, and also, everyone hides their faces in some way during the meetings. Since I thought you might be a bit uncomfortable wearing a full-face gas-mask like I will be, you should at least wear this. It will protect your nose, mouth, and lungs, and you'll have full use of your peripheral vision. Plus, you'll look a bit more intimidating, so it'll be more believable whenever we say you're with me."

"Umm, okay, I guess…" Rainbow replied slowly, taking the respirator from him.

"Do I really have to though? I mean, I can look tough," she said while putting on a grimace and squinting one eye, "and I can hold my breath for a long time if I need to."

"I'm afraid that's not going to be enough. Trust me, you'll feel less foolish when you're there and you see everyone else is hiding themselves behind something, and you're the only one who isn't. Just keep it, okay? Now tell everyone else I said goodnight, it's time you got to sleep."

Turning away, Grey walked back to his room, a few doors down the hallway, before going inside and locking it.

Standing alone in the dark hallway, Rainbow Dash held onto the respirator for a few moments before going back inside to the other girls. Before she did, she thought _Boy, this place is really freaking weird. I can't wait until we can all go home, but I guess the next step towards that is going along with Verdak's crazy plan, so I'll do it. I'll make sure my friends can count on me, I won't let them down,_ and then turned and walked back into the room she shared with her friends, the familiar people and comforting atmosphere created by the casual conversation, even though she knew she was in such a strange and unfamiliar place, made her feel right at home.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Testing – The Merchant Council Meeting – Making Money

Rainbow Dash was in trouble. She had had the strangest dream, where she and her friends had been sucked into a different world and forced to rely on a stranger who drove an armored bus, and because of which, she had overslept and was now missing soccer practice.

While she was finishing getting dressed, and struggling to pull her socks on, she opened her bedroom door only to find the stranger from her dream standing there, dressed all in grey clothing, with a large overcoat, a wide hat, and a gas mask covering his face.

Rainbow backed away as the tall figure stepped into her room, and as he did, he seemed to grow bigger, everything darkened, and shadows extended from behind him.

Paralyzed by fear, Rainbow Dash could only watch as the figure pulled out a massive, silver revolver.

The shadows spread throughout the room and started not only choking off her paths of escape, but also began choking _her._

As each breath became more painful, the monster's gas mask started glowing and melted, sloughing of the creature's face to reveal a black-charred skull with blazing fire in its eye sockets.

Now staring straight into the barrel of the gun, Rainbow could only watch as her vision went black, just before the gunshot blew through her mind.

BOOM! Boom-boom-boom!

Rainbow Dash awoke with a start. She was covered in sweat and she had gotten tangled up in her old clothes from the day before, which she had thrown on a pile beside the blankets she was currently sleeping on.

Noticing that yesterday's shirt had wrapped itself around her neck, she tore it off, before realizing someone was knocking on the door.

Looking around the room, Rainbow Dash came to recognize her surroundings as the room at the inn that she shared with the rest of the girls.

Boom-boom-boom-boom!

Rainbow Dash finally put the pieces together as she got up to answer the door. She had been dreaming, _actually, it was more of a nightmare_ , she thought.

Opening the room door a crack, her heart stopped for a moment as she saw Grey standing on the other side, before remembering that he wasn't a monster, and he wasn't trying to kill her.

"Hey…" she said, pretending she was half-asleep.

"Hey," Grey replied. He was already dressed in his typical grey attire, his gas mask hanging from his belt.

"Are you girls up yet?" he asked.

"We just woke up, why?"

"What? Just now? We have to get going already," he said, an incredulous look on his face.

"Look, you girls have five minutes to get dressed and get all your things in order. After that, we're leaving, and I don't care if you're brushing your teeth, sleeping in, or in the middle of changing."

"Sheesh, alright, alright Mr. bossy-pants," Rainbow replied, and without another word, closed the door on Grey and locked it.

The whole time that she was waking up her friends and changing into new clothes, she couldn't help but think of the nightmare she had just had. _Is this an omen or intuition or something?_ She thought. She didn't have an answer to her question though, so decided on it just being a nightmare and pushed it to the back of her mind.

A few minutes later, when they were all dressed and somewhat awake, and Grey was driving through the city, Rarity walked up to the driver's seat and asked Grey, "So, Verdak, tell me, what is it that the rest of us will be doing while you and Rainbow Dash are off on your little business venture?"

"Actually, before the meeting takes place, there's something you all have to come with me for, to discuss with the head of the Merchant Council."

"What do you mean? Why would we need to meet with the head of this council of yours?"

"We just do, alright? I'll explain when we get there, but right now, it's nine in the morning, we have to get there quickly, and I am _not_ a morning person."

"That's not an answer, Verdak," Rarity pointed out, "You've been acting strange lately, like you're keeping secrets from us."

"You girls have been here for two days, you don't know me well enough to notice a change in my behaviour. I'm always strange, and I always have secrets."

"So I've noticed. You're not going to tell us why we're skipping breakfast then?"

"Nope."

"Are you going to get us something to eat when we arrive back at this trading center?"

"Nope."

"Do you care to explain anything more about your plans for the rest of us today?"

"Nope."

Rarity tried asking a few more questions, but Grey was having none of it. It seemed he really _wasn't_ a morning person. He didn't say another word until they arrived back at the Grand Trade Exchange Center.

Whereas yesterday the place had been a crowded, bustling, lively building, now it was absolutely packed, and the liveliness had been heated to a feverish excitement.

Moving a bit stiffly, he brought them through the courtyard, into the main building, and into an elevator. This one was much different than the ones in the library that shot up and down like bullet trains, but was much larger, nearly the size of a small living room, and moved at the same speed as a normal elevator that the girls were used to. This one they rode up to the 120th floor, the same place Grey had visited the day before, though, the girls of course, had no knowledge of this.

Getting out of the lift, Grey passed by the desk, getting a dirty look from Ms. Willow, but he just walked up to the double doors and knocked. The group only had to wait a few moments before the door was opened by a tall, handsome man dressed in a deep blue suit, which was accented by a long, purple cape.

"Ah, Grey. This is them, then?" Asked another man in the room. This one was sitting at the far end of the long conference table that stood on the center of the room, and he was dressed in exquisitely elegant business clothes.

"Yes, Gold, these are the girls I told you about. I see you've already managed to bring our dear friend Violet to help us in this endeavor," as Grey spoke, a tinge of annoyance crept into his voice.

"Amber, Lavender, nice to see you two again," he said, referring to the two other people sitting in the room.

Mr. Gold spoke up, "You know I have to bring Violet to a meeting of this magnitude, it _is_ his area of expertise."

Grey finally noticed how uncomfortable the girls were. They were all shifting uneasily and shaking a bit, eyes darting around as they tried to find places to look, and Twilight nearly had Spike in a death grip. Grey realized how much like an interrogation this looked, and was about to comfort them, but then realized he had no idea how.

Seeing what looked like some sort of shifty business dealing, or trap that they were caught in, Sunset took the initiative.

"Grey, I think now you owe us all an explanation as to what we're doing here and why it had to be done before the meeting."

"Wait, you haven't told them?" asked the woman in the corner.

"No, Ms. Lavender, I have not told them yet, but I am going to now. Girls, this man," he said, pointing at Mr. Gold, "Is Mr. Gold, head of the Merchant Council, and the reason why I've brought you seven here is because you are key to finding out the greatest mystery in our world; magic. This here," he directed their attention to the handsome man in the cape, who was still standing by the door, "Is Mr. Violet. He's the city's foremost expert on magic happenings in this world, and I guess we're going to get his help, to try to figure out why magic seems to be leaking into this world at an ever-increasing rate, along with the implications it has."

"Wait," Twilight interrupted, "you mean to tell us that this man is an expert in magic and you didn't bring us to him sooner? I don't get it, I know we were busy, but why didn't you at least tell us about any of this earlier?"

"Actually," Mr. Gold intervened, "we only found out about you girls yesterday, and if I'm not mistaken, Grey here doesn't have regular contact with Mr. Violet, who _wasn't_ here yesterday, so it was crucial we set a meeting instead of hoping Violet would just turn up unexpectedly. And just because Grey didn't tell you about it in the sixteen hours since we arranged this, doesn't mean he's been keeping this from you just from spite. We actually didn't tell him, so this is a bit of a surprise for him too."

"I'll take it from here, Mr. Gold," said the man named Violet.

"You see, in this world, as I'm sure you're already aware, there exists magic, in small amounts, and it's not easy to come by. And as you may know as well, this magic wasn't always here. It's been around for less than a century, and we still know very little about it, but one thing we _do_ know, is that this magic has been finding its way into our world from outside this plane of existence."

Twilight put Spike on the ground and raised her hand, getting Violet's attention.

"Yes? Do you have a question, miss?"

"Yes, I do. What does this have to do with us?" she asked.

"I was just getting to that. We've had raw energy, in the form of magic, enter into our world, but it has always been that; energy. Never has there been a stable enough magical field for anything brought from another dimension to retain physical structure, and then suddenly, you girls turn up, fully intact, claiming to have come from a world in which there is magic, and you say you can even use magic in our world. Or at least that's what I've been told."

Sunset Shimmer frowned, "That doesn't make any sense. How could we have brought enough magic to stay ourselves if nothing else has been able to do that?"

"That," Violet replied, "Is exactly what we've brought you here to do."

"Yesterday when I went to my vault, I took out this," Grey announced, holding up the miniature-toaster-device.

"This is a dimensional frequency scanner," he told the girls, "It's a very rare piece of technology that can be tuned to read magic energy frequencies. Ever since I took it out last night, it's been going off the charts whenever I get anywhere near you girls. That means you have massive amounts of magic stored within you, and it also means you're incredibly powerful compared to most other magic-users in this world. I've brought you here, as proof that I actually met you girls and that there is more and more magic coming in to this world. This won't take long, but they wanted to measure you and-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on just a minute here!" Rarity exclaimed, "I'm not letting anyone touch me to measure me for anything! I don't know any of you!"

"Relax, missy," said Mr. Violet, "No one's going to touch you. I've got similar equipment to what your friend Grey here was talking about. It's just going to scan you and give me a few readings, don't worry."

There was a pause in which the girls looked around at each other nervously, after which, Twilight Sparkle stepped forward and said, "Alright, but why so much secrecy if you just wanted to see if we really did possess magic?"

"Well the thing with that is, since magic is such a relatively unknown subject here, it's not common knowledge and most people are subsequently scared of it, so if you had mentioned the word 'magic' in a public place, you would have at least gotten some weird looks and at worst you could have been arrested, or even lynched." Violet said, matter-of-factly.

"We asked about magic in the library, and no one gave us any weird looks there," Twilight pointed out.

"That's because you were in a library. People go there to learn about things, and like I said before, magic isn't a much understood branch energy, so the people there probably assumed you wanted to learn about it, rather than use the information to acquire magic and use it to suck someone's soul out of their eyeballs or something."

The girls, just gave him a shocked stare, until he put his hands in the air and said, "Hey, hey, I'm just joking, I don't even know if you can do that with magic," he joked.

The girls still stared at Violet, but they seemed a little less on edge now.

"So… how should we do this?" Sunset Shimmer asked, trying to break the tension in the air.

"Well, let's go into the next room, that's where my equipment is set up," Violet explained.

When he said this, the girls looked alarmed and nervous again, so Grey intervened.

"I'll be coming with them. That's not a problem, I hope?"

"Oh, no, no, not at all Mr. Grey. By all means, do come along. And if you want, I can test you for magic as well."

Grey snorted, "Not likely. And do they really have to go through anything more than a portable dimensional frequency scanner? You said you wanted proof, I've offered an easy way to show it to you, and now you want to put them into who in the hell knows what sort of machines to see if they're magical? I don't agree to this."

"Grey, listen," Mr. Gold spoke up again, "It's perfectly fine, we'll all be there, and it will only take a moment. We agreed to this yesterday, remember?"

"I remember agreeing to scan them for magical energy frequencies. I never knew about Violet being here."

"Well, in any case what do you suggest as an alternative?"

"Violet," Grey said, turning to the man, "What is the most accurate, portable measuring device you have in the other room? It's a bigger frequency scanner, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, but I need more than ju-"

"You don't need anything more. Girls," he said, addressing them now, "You said something about showing your magic when something special happened, or something like that, right?"

"Yeah," Sunset replied, "We pon-, er, activate our magic by when we play music together and when we show the truest parts of ourselves."

"Do you think you could do that?" Grey asked.

"I don't actually know. I told you, we tried to do it when we first found ourselves here, but there was barely enough magic in this world and we were really drained when we attempted to do it, so we barely managed it."

"Do you think you have enough magic now to do it? If there's a visible effect, then we won't even really need to measure the change in the magic field. These guys will have their proof and their data, so they can get on to their job of figuring out this phenomena, and we can be done and get down to business."

"We'll try."

For the next few minutes, Violet, along with Grey and Mr. Amber, wheeled a nearly identical toaster-like machine to the one Grey had shown, out from an adjacent room on a cart and he began plugging in wires and tuning dials.

Meanwhile, the girls stood off to the side, conversing among themselves.

"I still don't get why we have to do everything they say," Rainbow Dash whispered.

"Listen, this is a real problem in this world, and this could help us find out how to get home," Sunset answered, "Besides, I thought you were always up for showing more people how awesome we are as a band."

"I am, but look around this place," Rainbow waved to the rest of the room, "Do you see any instruments here? How are we supposed to play music if we've got nothing to play?"

"Well, we can all still sing, can't we?"

"Will that be enough, darling? I mean enough to get us to pony-up?" Rarity asked.

"It better. Besides, if we're all here together and we've got nothing to fear, then I think it'll be easy for us to pony-up and prove we really can use magic."

"Is that really a good idea?" Fluttershy asked, "I mean, if we show them our magic, how do we know they won't just take us away and experiment on us to try to find out how our magic works and how to use it for themselves and we're stuck here for the rest of our lives and we never go back home?" Fluttershy started tearing up.

"Wow, sugar cube, I had no idea that all this had got to ya so much over the last few days," applejack said, comforting Fluttershy.

"Don't worry, I won't let that happen."

Fluttershy jumped at the sound of Grey's voice right behind her. The men were done setting up the device and Grey had come over to tell them it was ready.

"I'll be here the whole time, nothing bad will happen."

For some reason, that made Fluttershy start to feel more trusting of Grey, and after a few moments, she wiped away her tears and put on a brave face.

"Ah hope you're not gonna keep us safe with that gun o' yours," Applejack voiced.

"No. Not unless one of them does something incredibly, horribly stupid."

Giving Grey and unamused look, Applejack turned her attention back to comfort Fluttershy again, but saw that she didn't need it as much now.

"Ok, I-I think I'm a bit better now. Let's get this over with. Once we're done with this I'll be happier."

"You sure?" asked Twilight.

Fluttershy nodded, and the girls allowed themselves to be guided to the machine, while Spike sat down beside Grey and watched.

"Wait," Pinkie Pie whispered, "What song should we sing?"

"I was thinking 'Shine Like Rainbows'," Rainbow Dash suggested.

"Sure, why not?" Sunset agreed.

"Alright then, it's settled," Rarity said.

"Yeah, just remember. Let's do this together and with confidence. We just have to have fun and everything will be just fine," Sunset Shimmer concluded.

"You girls ready?" asked Violet.

The girls just nodded in unison.

Violet flicked a switch and the machine turned on, giving readings on a screen that he watched intently. When the girls got closer, the machine started picking up more energy readings.

Pinkie set up the tempo and beat by tapping her thigh and then the girls started singing, each joining in at different parts.

" _Once, upon a time, you came into my world and made the stars align,_

 _Now, I can see the signs, you pick me up when I get down so I can shine."_

At this point in the song, Grey had already started to lose interest, but when the girls started on the chorus, a soft glow started to emanate from them and they began to float a few inches off the ground. Not to mention, the magic frequency scanner had started recording an increasingly strong energy field.

As the song progressed, the girls became more relaxed and confident, and the machine displayed a higher energy reading because of it. Also, ears appeared on the top of the girls' heads and their hair exploded outward, nearly doubling in length. Two of the girls even grew wings.

As the song ended and the extra anatomy of the girls faded, the onlookers simply stared in awe and Spike scampered over to Twilight, wagging his tail profusely.

Grey didn't even try to hide his surprise, but Violet quickly composed himself and went back to studying the readings on the scanner.

Mr. Gold was so stunned he just sat down and didn't say anything.

Seeing that no one was talking, Grey asked, "So… I assume that was enough for you to get by with, Violet?"

"Huh? Oh, oh! Yes! I-I mean um, yeah. I would definitely want to be able to test these girls more another time, but you were right, for now this is plenty.

"Gold?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, you can go. Go get ready for the meeting later, all of you, I need to think."

Grey nodded and started herding the girls out of the room, but before he could Gold interjected.

"Remember, Grey, everyone. Everything that just happened here, all that we saw, none of it leaves this room, understood?"

Grey gave a short nod and the girls chimed in with multiple 'yes's and 'okay's, and they all left Gold to his own devices.

"So, do you mind explaining what it is we're going to do all day?" Twilight asked, once they were back on the ground floor.

Grey directed them towards a set of benches, where they sat, Grey standing in front of them to explain. First however, he took out his money pouch and counted out ten silver squares and gave it to each of them, except for Rainbow Dash.

"Here, I have given each of you girls 10 Silver Plarts. You have all day today to do with them whatever you please. That's about enough to buy yourselves a few medium-sized meals. Here's the catch: I want each one of you to give me back 10 Silver Plarts when the day is over. Now, you can save the money all day, and get very bored and hungry doing so, or you can try to use it to make more money to be able to buy yourselves lunch and also give me back the money. That's all I have to say. Do whatever it is you want with the money, I just want all 10 back from each of you at the end of the day, and I want to know what you did with the money. If you happen to have more than 10 at the end of the day, you get to keep the extra. Deal?"

"Wait, what's this? No rules, or instructions on how we're supposed to make more money?" Sunset asked, "How are we supposed to do this if you haven't shown us how?"

"Easy. You're not. That's the point. This is the test, and later comes the lesson, but I just want to know which of you will pass it now and I want to know how you did it. Other than that, you get 10 Silver Plarts by the end of the day any way you see fit."

And with that, he turned around and walked back to the elevator.

"Is he serious?" Pinkie gasped exasperatedly, "This place is huge! How will we know where to go to do what we need to do? What if we get lost?"

"Relax Pinkie," Rarity reassured her, "We're inside a skyscraper. We'll always be able to get out of here so long as we know how to get to the ground floor."

"You girls going to be okay?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yeah, we'll figure something out. You get going, Verdak's looking pretty impatient over there," Sunset replied.

As the group watched the retreating figure of Rainbow Dash leave through the crowd, Fluttershy turned to Sunset Shimmer.

"So, um, do you know any way we could get more money with this?"

"I've got no idea."

In the elevator, Grey was putting on his gas mask, and, seeing Rainbow Dash was having trouble with her respirator, when he was finished, helped her put it on properly. Rainbow actually hadn't been having trouble putting on her respirator, she'd just been fiddling with it because she hadn't wanted to put it on.

As they arrived on the 118th floor, Rainbow was greeted with the most bizarre sight she'd ever encountered before.

The doors opened into a large room filled with people, all of which were wearing something over their faces, and all were decked out in strange, exotic, and extravagant outfits. Almost everyone she could see had weapons of some sort adorning their bodies, and around 50 armed guards stood at the edges of the room. On the far wall, above several sets of double doors, sat a huge clock, which showed 5 minutes to 10:00.

Rainbow Dash looked at Grey, but could see nothing of his expression beneath his mask, and even the eyepieces were darkly tinted, so she couldn't even make out where he was looking.

"Hey, umm, is this the meeting?" she asked nervously, noticing how a few people gave her strange looks from under scarves and strange masks. As soon as she spoke, she realized how quiet and nasally her voice had become because of her respirator. Also, the smell of plain rubber made her feel like she was breathing inside a tire, and every time she took a breath, the respirator's strange acoustics forced air through small holes, making it sounded like she was hooked up to a breathing machine.

Grey turned to face her.

"No, the meeting still hasn't started. In five minutes they'll let us into the Council Room, and we'll be able to sit down and talk like civilized people. Don't worry, you're not going to be forced to just stand in a crowd for six hours."

"Oh, uh, ok."

"I didn't just bring you along for shits 'n giggles, by the way. I want you to pay attention to everything that goes on in that room, and I want you to try and figure out the implications of each issue that comes up, alright? I know you don't like me, and you don't care to listen to me, but I know you care for your friends, so try to learn from this meeting so that you can help them, alright?"

Rainbow Dash stared at him for a few seconds, _well at least he can't see my expression under this thing,_ she thought, before clearing her voice and speaking loud to make up for the quieting effect of the respirator.

"'Kay. I'll do my best. But you've got to be honest with me from now on, deal? Actually, I want you to be honest with _us_ from now on. If we ask you something I want you to answer it truthfully."

"Very well, but I want to tell you right now; I have been truthful with you girls. I've just occasionally refused to answer your questions. If I do that in the future, you have to understand, I have a reason for it. Usually, the reason is that it won't help the situation. But I need you to trust me with this, okay? I'll answer any and all questions you girls might have with the truth, but if I refuse to answer at all, I don't want you to press it. I'll tell you when the appropriate time comes."

Just then, the doors on the far side of the room opened, and out through them stepped a large man in a beautifully crafted suit and tailcoat, with a golden masquerade mask on his face.

Although she couldn't see his face, Rainbow Dash recognized Mr. Gold as his voice boomed out over the low chatter of the crowd.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Please enter the Council Chambers and take your places. The Merchant Council Meeting will take place in two minutes."

Filing through the doors, Rainbow found herself in a huge, two-storey room made of dark concrete, with small, narrow windows set high in the walls. A massive donut-shaped oak table dominated the center of the room, with what looked like a hundred chairs placed around it. There were also chairs placed around the edges of the room, where more armed guards sat.

Grey directed her to two seats which had grey placeholder cards on them.

As they sat down, Grey spoke, more to himself than anyone else, but Rainbow Dash, right next to him, heard.

"I never realized how little my second chair is used."

"Second chair? What do you mean?"

"The chair you're sitting in. Everyone on the Council gets two chairs. One for themselves and the other for their plus one. I've almost always come alone, so my second chair is empty because of it. It's just strange for me to see someone sitting in it, that's all."

"Oh, well, uh, cool… I guess? Sorry, I'm not the best at relating to other people's feelings."

"That's fine. I wasn't really talking about my feelings, but I don't care about them all that much. Right now I just care that you listen and learn for the next six hours."

"Uhh, yeah," Rainbow Dash sighed, "looking forward to it."

Rainbow looked around and recognized Violet by his purple cape, seated about a quarter turn down the table from them.

At that moment, everyone had been seated, and several figures dressed completely in dark shawls, whom Rainbow Dash hadn't noticed before, stepped forward from the corners of the room.

"Now," one of them spoke, his voice reverberating through the dark room, "Is everyone seated? Good. We'll begin with the colors, and go down the spectrum. Red?"

"Here," said a man dressed in red trousers a black jacket and wearing sunglasses, standing up as he did so.

"Scarlet?"

"Here," said a woman covering her face with a scarf, standing up. Rainbow Dash recognized her voice as belonging to the same woman Grey had tried to meet with yesterday.

As each person was called out and stood, replying with 'here', Rainbow Dash noticed that most, if not all of them had someone next to them that stayed seated the whole time.

Leaning toward Grey, she asked, "Hey, only about half of the people are standing up. Are the rest of them apprentices?"

"More or less," he replied in an undertone, "Like I said before, they can be apprentices, which make up the majority of seconds here, but they can also be bodyguards and translator as well. You'll notice that more as the meeting goes on."

Waiting for the roll call, or whatever it was to be over, Rainbow came up with another question.

"Hey, Grey," She whispered, although rather loudly so that the sound of her voice wasn't completely absorbed by the respirator she was wearing, "who are those people dressed like that? I didn't even see them when I came in, it's like they just walked straight through the walls."

"Those are members of the Black Inquisition. They're kind of like secret investigators or something. They keep an eye on everything that goes on within the free lands of the Territorial Areas, and so you can expect them to be lurking in the shadows whenever there's important and large decisions being made."

"We didn't see any of them when we pony-"

" _Don't._ Don't say anything about that, remember, anything and everything that happened in that room stays in that room. And since they're here now, I don't want either of us to talk about it."

Grabbing the bag he had on his shoulder and pulling out a notebook and a pen he said, "Here, any questions you have during the meeting, especially those pertaining to things we can't talk about, you write down here. Don't let anyone else see what you're writing, and when the first day is over, I'll answer whatever questions I can, alright? I'm sorry, but this place is very secretive and these meetings are always a delicate situation."

"Oh, alright," Rainbow replied, taking the notepad and pen.

Not paying attention to the names being called out, Rainbow was quite surprised when the Black Inquisition started calling out the name of people represented by shades, and Grey subsequently stood and said 'here'.

When all of the members of the Council had been called, only two were absent, and the Council Meeting officially started.

Gold stood up to speak.

"Everyone, I know there are many pressing issues that we will address over the next three days together, but this first one affects us all. We have to do something about the spread of magic in the Territorial Areas. I know some of you still think it is just a myth, but magic is real, and recently, its influx into our world has grown exponentially. Now, there are people, even in this very room, who are trying to further our understanding of it and to be able to either harness it for appropriate uses or else stop it from coming in any more, but we all need to be aware of the extent of its consequences…"

Rainbow Dash knew she had promised to stay vigilant and listen to everything that was going to be going on, but she was already beginning to feel her attention slip. _This feels like I'm in class,_ she thought, remembering the boring lectures she usually had to sit through at school, so she shook her head and tried to focus, but while Gold had a powerful, commanding voice, something none of her teachers had, she still felt her attention wander.

Settling into her seat to try to feel more comfortable, she started fiddling with her respirator and thought, _This is going to be a_ long _six hours…_

"What now?" Twilight asked for the fifth time. She pulled Spike to a stop, whom she had put on a leash to walk about on his own beside the group.

"I know Verdak said we don't have a lot of money and we have to make back anything we spend today, but you have to agree, _not_ getting this fabric would simply be a crime! I mean, it's exquisite! I could use this with so many outfits!"

"Rarity, ye know we can't buy it, besides, Ah think this little symbol here is fer them Plarts or whatever they're called," Applejack said, pointing to the price tag, "And this fabric is way too expensive."

"Oh, come now, Applejack. Money is no object when it comes to fashion."

"Yeah, maybe fer you, but it ain't _our_ money! And we've got sixty o' these little silver Plarts, while one square meter of your fancy cloth costs forty-seven!" Applejack said, pointing to the price tag again.

Sunset Shimmer put a hand on Rarity's shoulder, speaking in a calming voice.

"Girls, everyone, I know there's a lot of cool stuff here that none of us have ever seen before in our world; I want to get some of this stuff too, but let's make some money first, and then when we have more than we need to pay back Verdak, we can buy some of the things we want."

"You're right of course, darling," Rarity sighed, "I just wish we knew the rules of this world. Normally I would just make and sell a few dresses, but I've got no idea how we can make money here if I can't even afford the materials to make them."

"Well, actually, now that Ah think about it, Ah think I might have come up with something that can work," Applejack suggested.

"Me too!" Pinkie pie yelled, jumping up and down, "Me, me, pick me!" Thankfully the market was so busy that her over-enthusiastic outburst went mostly unnoticed.

"Oh, alright Pinkie, you first," Applejack said.

"Alright, you know how we all had talents that we used in our jobs back home? Well, why don't we go around and try to find work for the day in places that we already have experience in?

"That actually sounds like a really good idea," Fluttershy said.

"What were you thinking, Applejack?" Sunset asked.

"Well, Ah've realized that just about everyone in this world works fer money and money only. Since we've got a bit of money, Ah think we should pool it together, go somewhere, and get some information or advice that we can use to earn more money."

"Ok, how would you suggest we find someone?"

"Well, Verdak went to a bar yesterday fer information. Even though it didn't work out for him, it's as good a place as any to start."

"Hey! What about my idea?" Pinkie whined.

"We'll look for places we can apply while we try to get information, kay?" Sunset asked.

"Alright…" Pinkie reluctantly agreed.

"Okay, we'll have to be on our guard, we don't know what could happen," Twilight said, "but let's go find ourselves a bar!"

Rainbow Dash had actually managed to pay attention for the majority of the meeting so far, although the same couldn't be said for her comprehension of it.

She knew Verdak couldn't fault her for not knowing things like places and rules in his world, but if he asked her what was so wrong about, say, one of the reports that another Council Member brought in, she didn't always know how to answer him.

After a very well put-together report by an older grizzled man who wore a very strange set of brass goggles, Rainbow Dash once again dozed off, her gaze wandering around the bare chamber until she noticed one of the figures in dark shawls looking straight at her. Trying to look like she hadn't noticed, she kept sweeping her gaze until she saw the figure jot something down on a clipboard out of the corner of her eye. When she saw that, she looked back towards the figure, making sure to keep her eyes almost closed, and saw it move off and observe other members of the Council.

Leaning over to Grey, Rainbow waited for him to notice her before whispering.

"Hey, why are those creeps in black watching us and what are they writing down?"

Briefly forgetting his previous instructions to her, Grey answered, "They're the Black Inquisition, they're job is to keep track of everything, so that's what they're doing. They're literally writing down everything everyone says and does, anything that might be important later."

"Important? Why would everything be important?"

"They don't know, but they take and keep everything and then analyze it to try to see if something strange is going on. If something were to happen in the future regarding any of the people here today, they'll take all the information they gathered, go over it over and over and over again until they're satisfied that either they found something useful to the situation from the records that can be used to explain factors from the situation, or they come to the conclusion that the records contain no valuable info pertaining to the situation at hand that it was called upon for."

"Woah, woah, woah, slow down there. You lost me at 'analyze'. English please," Rainbow Dash whispered.

Grey gave a small sigh before retrying.

"They keep tabs on everyone in case there's a crime and something we said or did could give it away."

"Oh, well why didn't you say so, that makes loads more sense."

"Congratulations. Now try to figure out what the advantages of doing that are, while I listen. It would be in my interests to pay attention, so try to keep your questions to yourself, or write them down."

"Fine."

Turning her attention back to the table, she listened as someone (she stopped bothering to remember names at this point) gave a report of a new warlord, named Tobias Crinford, that had emerged in the far east and started taking over land, and he was apparently being backed by some other government called the 'Leviathan's Fist'. Rainbow Dash was about to lose focus again when the man finished his report and Gold stood, announcing that it was time to take a break.

As the sound of talk started filling the camber, and people started filing out to spend some time in the market, Grey gathered up his things and pulled a paper bag out of his shoulder bag, and handed it to her as they moved for the doors.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Your lunch," he answered blankly.

"What do you mean?" she said, looking inside, "There's only a sandwich in here. It's so small."

"I have the exact same thing for lunch," he responded.

"That doesn't make it better. I'm a growing girl, I need proper food! Can you buy me something to go with this?"

"No, the reason I gave you that was so that I wouldn't have to spend more money on you, because it's much cheaper to make your own food than to buy it from somewhere, already made."

"Well, are we at least going to get more food for dinner? I'm pretty hungry you know. And we didn't exactly get food on the first day we came here, so-"

While they were waiting in line at the elevators to go down into the market place, Grey cut her off, "Hey, I came to your girls' room that evening to get you girls some food, but I heard you all snoring through the door already. It's not my fault you missed a meal, and it's been more than a day, so don't even think you still have hunger from then."

The two of them got into the elevator with a few other Council members, none of whom had yet elected to take off their masks. At nearly every floor, someone got out and another person got in and pretty soon Grey and Rainbow Dash were the only two people from the original group to still be in the elevator. That didn't last too much longer, because Grey steered them out when it reached the 50th floor.

Rainbow started taking off her respirator when Grey stopped her. Pointing through the crowd, near a stall that was selling jewelry made out of jade stood one of the Black Inquisition and ironically, Jade. They were having a hushed conversation and when they noticed that Grey and Rainbow Dash were there, they hurried off to disappear into the throng.

"What was that all about?"

"Not entirely sure, but those are the two of the least trustworthy factions I know, and if they're conspiring something, it can't be good."

"Can I take this dumb thing off yet? I want to eat."

"You certainly picked up on what I was just saying," he gave her an unsatisfied expression, "Yes, fine, go ahead now, but let's move somewhere else just in case, we don't want them overhearing us or recognizing you too easily."

Plopping herself down on a bench after a few minutes of walking, Rainbow Dash tore off her respirator and sucked in a huge lungful of air. Grabbing the sandwich out of the bag, she started wolfing git down, and she was done almost before Grey had started.

"I'm still hungry," Rainbow grumbled, tossing the bag into a nearby trash can.

"Too bad," was all the sympathy she received.

"You know, you don't have to be so cold sometimes."

"Cold? I'm not cold, I just try to be rational whenever I can."

"Well, you're personality is pretty cold. I've seen a warmer, better person underneath a few times, but then you go back to being, well… you; cold, uncaring, you."

He fixed her with a quizzical look. "Explain," he said.

"Look, I don't know, I just remember that sometimes you're almost nice to us, like you were when we came out of that bar yesterday, but then the next moment you forget about what that's like and you go back to being all Mr. Business-facts-McGee. It's like you don't have feelings."

"I told you, I don't care about my feelings, they're-"

"Wait, no, except anger, we've seen alooot of that," Rainbow interrupted.

"Okay, yes, I can get very irritable when idiots are around and when things don't go the way I want or expect them to, but I don't see how being exceptionally nicer to you girls is going to-actually, what's your point? You never said _why_ I should stop being so 'cold'."

"Well, people will like you more if you're nice to them, and they might be less likely to be 'idiots' around you."

"Fine you want me to be nicer to people? To you girls? I can do that, but what do I get in return?"

"What?!"

"What do I get in return?"

"I heard what you said Verdak, I'm not deaf, but what do you mean 'what do you get in return'? It's being nice! You're just supposed to expect people to be nice back. If you try being friendlier, you might just earn a few friends," Rainbow explained.

"Don't waste your time on him darling," a voice came from beside Rainbow Dash. She looked, and saw a drop-dead gorgeous woman in her thirties who was wearing a long, red dress, a fox fur scarf around her neck, had long gold curls flowing onto her shoulders, and flawless skin that was nearly pure white.

"He's not the sort of person to understand things like _being nice_ , and _friendship._ He only understands money and material value." She caught the puzzled look on Rainbow Dash's face. "Oh, but don't feel bad about not being able to change him sweetie, it's just been built into him."

"Hello Nora," Grey ground his teeth as he spoke, "How's that brat of yours? Blackmailing all the students he can't buy with your money down at that fancy boarding school of his?"

"Verdakasi, what have I told you about talking about Danny like that?"

"Don't call me 'Verdakasi'," Grey said, his voice and expression had relaxed just enough to give him back his usual bored expression, but from where she was sitting next to him on the bench, Rainbow Dash could feel the contempt radiating off of him like heat from a furnace.

"That's not my name, it's a stupid nickname your idiot husband thought up, and I hate it," Grey said accusingly.

"Oh come now, Verdakasi is so much more becoming of you than 'Verdak', I mean, it just sounds so much less harsh than that awful name your mother picked out."

"Don't speak about my mother. I don't want anything to do with you or her. And what are you doing in a place like this? I thought you hated being seen in a place as 'rough' and 'unkempt' as this."

"I'm here with Roberto, not that you care," she retorted. Both of the two had all but forgotten about Rainbow Dash by then.

"And on another note, she was _my_ sister, I can talk about her if I want. I've had it with you trying to dictate my life-"

"Dictate _your_ life?! Look who's talking! You tried to get me kicked out of the house if I didn't conform to every mindless order you gave me, back when I was living with you, and even now, you still try and guilt me into thinking wanting to live my own life would have killed you."

"It did kill me! When your mother died and I took you in, I wanted you to grow into a nice, well-mannered gentleman, and that you would find a good girl to settle down with. I see you've found _someone_ , but even still I had such high hopes for you, and look at you! You've done everything in your power to defy my wishes and even the girls you go out with are as ungrateful as you I bet," Nora said, directing the last comment at Rainbow Dash with obvious contempt.

"Hey what do you mean, 'ungrateful'? You talking about me?" Rainbow demanded.

"Well, obviously. Just look at you, rainbow dyed hair? You're wearing your clothes like you're some kind of punk rocker, and don't even get me started on your attitude. I heard your argument from earlier, and though I congratulate you for trying to change him, your tone was more than enough to-"

Grey cut her short, "You leave her out of this. I'm not dating her. Are you brain-dead? Have you forgotten that the Merchant Council meeting is going on? Your idiot husband is one of the Members! You know as well as I do that I can't, and wouldn't, bring a girl on a _date_ , to the meeting of all places. I always knew you were evil and stupid, but I'm really beginning to think there's something wrong with your brain. She's my apprentice, not my girlfriend."

"Huh, maybe there's hope for you yet."

"Are you done ridiculing me and embarrassing yourself?" Grey asked.

For some reason, that last statement seemed to be just the tiniest bit too much for Nora, and for the slightest moment, she seemed to deflate just a bit, but the next moment she had regained her composure and huffed. "Well, then, I think it's time you left. Isn't your precious little meeting starting again soon?"

Getting up without even trying to summon the strength to argue with her any longer, Grey grabbed Rainbow Dash by the arm, dragging her along with him, and didn't let go until they had put a few floors between themselves and Nora. Finally Rainbow Dash spoke.

"So, uh, hey… Could you, like, let me go now? It's not like I'm going anywhere, I don't know how to get anywhere on my own."

"What? Oh, right, sorry, I just got carried away I guess."

"Yeah, that would be putting it lightly. So… who was that?"

"That was my aunt. Her husband's also on the Merchant Council Meeting, his color is designated as Orange, and he's rich as all hell. He's also dumb as a rock, so I never really figured out how he got all that money, but long story short, when my mother died, Nora took me in and her overbearing, controlling nature drove me out of the house where I found my own place in life. Fast forward a few years and here I am, a successful merchant and a crafty businessman, whereas she never thought I'd be anything more than a street rat scrounging for scraps. I think it pisses her off most that she was wrong and the way she thinks is best to bring up children didn't work with me."

"Oh. Thanks, I think? I didn't really need to hear your whole life story but, um, there, there. It's okay now." Rainbow Dash said, patting Grey awkwardly on the shoulder.

Grey gave her a look like her head had just been replaced with a fish's.

"What the hell? What is this supposed to be?"

"I dunno! I'm just trying to help! This is exactly what I was talking about, it's not cool when someone is trying to comfort you and you just bite their head off, 'kay? You don't have to be rude."

"Was I being rude?" Grey quickly developed a look of genuine concern on his face, "I didn't realize. I try not to be all that rude to people, but you know, like you just saw with Nora, sometimes I don't care what I say. I don't care much about being friendly to other people, but I know for a fact that you can't lose much by being polite. I mean, you saw me when I killed Cardley, right? I was angry, but nowhere near as angry as I was just now, so I could keep it under control then."

" _That_ was keeping it _under control?!_ " Rainbow Dash exclaimed, "You shot the guy! And you want to tell me that getting rude here, but not killing anyone was you losing it?"

"Actually, you haven't seen me lose it yet. That was just me being stupid and letting my emotions get to me. And now you understand a bit why I don't like feeling my feelings. They make me do stupid things, as you just saw. I was yelling at her and I made some very irrational decisions, and I apologize for that. However, as much as it pains me to admit it, she was right about something."

"What's that?" Rainbow asked, suddenly remembering the comment about her being ungrateful and having bad attitude, and she got the feeling that Grey was going to turn his anger on her.

"The Meeting. It's reconvening again and we have to get going."

Letting out a deep internal sigh, Rainbow Dash responded, "Oh, yeah, of course."

"By the way," Grey said, as the two of them were once again going up the lift to the 118th floor, "I want to say that you are exceeding my expectations. I didn't think you'd actually pay any attention to what's going on at the meeting. If you keep it up," he paused to put on his gas mask and motioned for Rainbow to do the same with her respirator before going on, "I'll get you girls something special once the last day of the meeting is over.

"Something special? Like what? Wanna give me a hint?"

"No. I'm not telling you, mainly because I haven't thought of anything yet."

"What?! Really? You know, you can be kind of mean without meaning to sometimes."

"Mean? How am I being mean right now? You're not making any sense."

Rainbow gave a little laugh as she relaxed. Grey seemed to have calmed down since his run-in with his aunt, and she noted that he had slipped back into his uncaring, robot-like demeanor. When she didn't answer him, he just stared back at the doors of the elevator and waited for the right floor. Since there was no one else in the elevator, it was unsurprising that in a place as busy as this, the elevator doors opened and someone stepped in off the 83rd floor.

This new person was also wearing a gas mask, but it was far differently crafted than the one Grey wore. It was made of metal, with small filters all over the bottom portion, and over a dozen eyepieces, some of them glowing, sticking out of the top half. The mask itself completely covered the person's face and a black rubber-like fabric covered their neck and throat. The person wore a short, dark grey coat, and a hood hid the parts of their head not already obscured by the mask. The newcomer was reading something off of a clipboard, and was also jotting something down on it. Turning to face the front, the person didn't notice the two of them, and Rainbow Dash looked over the figure's shoulder to see what they were writing. All that met her eyes were dozens of tiny schematics and what looked to be a hundred calculations crammed onto one piece of paper, and from the amount of paper on the clipboard, it looked like they still had plenty more that Rainbow couldn't see.

Grey surprised Rainbow Dash by stepping forward to the oblivious stranger and tapping them on the shoulder.

"Hello, Jet. Still trying to predict everyone's economic positions?"

"Oh! Oh hello Grey! I didn't see you there! Yes, you know me, I can't do anything without checking the numbers first." The voice that belonged to the person standing in the elevator with them surprised Rainbow, it belonged to a woman, and was heavily synthesized by the harmonics in the mask, making it sound like a cheerful robot.

"Jet, I want you to meet Rainbow Dash. She's a new apprentice of mine. Rainbow Dash, this is Jet. She is also on the Merchant Council, and she represents the Shade of Jet Grey."

"Nice to meet you," Rainbow Dash said, extending a hand towards Jet. Jet transferred her pen and clipboard to one hand and took Rainbow's with the other, shaking it violently.

"Oh it's super nice to meet you too Rainbow Dash! I love your hair! Did you do that yourself?"

Slightly taken aback by Jet's hyper nature and the fact that her whole body was shaking from the handshake, Rainbow Dash couldn't respond until she let go.

"Actually, you won't believe this, but it's natural."

"What!? No way! How is that even possible?"

"That's a secret that I'm afraid we can't tell you Jet," Grey interrupted.

"Awww, you're no fun Grey. But hey, it's nice to see you have an apprentice. I thought you'd never get another one after what happened last time!" Jet said cheerfully.

"What happened last time?" Rainbow asked suspiciously.

"The last time I had an apprentice, he tried to kill me," Grey answered, "And I thought that I would never again take on an apprentice. And I didn't, for about eight months, then I started rethinking, and I thought maybe I would give it another chance."

"And then we showed up," Rainbow Dash concluded.

"Well, yes, but about three weeks after I had changed my mind again."

"Hey, Rainbow Dash, do you mind if I call you Dash?" Jet interjected.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, my friends do sometimes, so it's fine."

"Awesome," Jet replied, "Because I just wanted to ask, Dash, what did you mean by 'we'?"

"Oh, uh," unsure of how to answer, she looked to Grey for support, and saw a nod that meant _go ahead_.

"Well, Verdak told us that it's pretty rare, but me and a bunch of my friends, we're all his apprentices." When she heard that, although neither Grey nor Rainbow Dash could see her expression behind the metal mask, her head stuck forward and her voice shrilled, made even more so by the mask itself.

"Grey you've got a whole group of apprentices?! Whatever happened to working alone? I thought that was your thing! Less people means less mouths to feed, remember? You were the one that brought made up that motto."

"Alright, alright, that's enough excitement, now cut it," Grey replied.

As it turned out, Grey hadn't needed to tell Jet to quit talking about the subject, because just then, they reached the 107th floor, and Jade and his Black Inquisitor companion stepped into the lift, effectively killing the conversation.

"Grey."

"Jade."

"Jet."

"Jade."

They rode in uncomfortable silence for the last minute of the trip and as soon as the doors opened, Jade and his silent, shawl-wrapped companion briskly strode out and towards the doors of the Council Chamber.

"I really don't like that guy," remarked Jet, as the three of them followed Jade out.

"Neither do I, but unfortunately, he's too much of a sly coward for us to get rid of," Grey added.

"Hey, remember when the two of us, along with Ivory, Big Joe, and Ma Danger strapped him to that torpedo and shot him through Bordin Harbour? That was hilarious!" Jet said, her mask making her chuckle sound like the buzzing of an insect's wings, "We never did find out how he survived that, did we?"

"Maybe he used… _magic! Oooo!"_ Rainbow Dash said, cutting into the conversation.

"No, he can't use magic, we've already ruled that out as a possibility," Grey stated flatly.

As they walked into the Council Chamber, a hush once again fell over the crowd. As everyone once again took their seats, Rainbow noticed that Jet was sitting only three seats away from them, _well, actually it's six seats, because of everyone's plus one seat,_ she thought to herself. Looking over at where Jade sat, she saw that he gave a subtle hand signal and behind him, one of the Black Inquisition wrote something down on its clipboard.

Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, she returned her attention to the next person who stood up and began speaking.

"Well, this is _really_ working out you guys," Pinkie sighed sarcastically.

"Hey, Ah really thought this plan would work," Applejack retorted.

The six girls were sitting inside a small, near-empty bar, with dim lighting, a smoky feel, and a strong smell of incense, near the entrance. The walls were decorated in red wallpaper that had brown swirl patterns all over it, and the only lights were small, wall-mounted lamps, none of which were powerful enough to illuminate anyone's face. Applejack supposed that was made to be intentional, as the few other patrons in the bar seemed like they weren't too keen on socializing. There was one huge brute of a man in one corner, dressed in rough black, with tattoos running up and down both exposed arms, and two men were having a hushed conversation in another, both keeping their faces hidden.

Applejack took a sip of the drink she had ordered. It was the only thing without alcohol on the menu, and they had all ordered it, but she was kind of wishing she hadn't. It was called a 'quickle beer', which sounded much more enjoyable than it tasted. The taste, which was like avocados mixed with eggs and lemon, might have been bearable, but was made worse, as it had the texture of milk and sawdust. The worst part about it had to be the fact that all six of the drinks had cost them four and a half Silver Plarts.

They had paid five Plarts, and the man behind the bar had given them a small copper coin, about the size of one of the Plarts. Applejack had resolved to ask Verdak what relation the copper piece had to silver.

However, worse than that, they had also bought a couple bags of crackers, one to share amongst themselves and one so Twilight could feed Spike, whom the barkeep had grudgingly let in his bar, and those had cost yet another one and a half Plarts, so Applejack no longer had the copper one to show Verdak.

"Well, darling, it was a good try, but maybe we had better go with Pinkie's suggestion now. Or perhaps get some lunch, it _is_ nearly one o'clock now," Rarity suggested.

"Ahh, maybe you're right, Rarity, Ah guess Ah was just expecting us ta have a job fall on our laps while we wait here. Although Ah also don't think this bar was the best place ta interact with other people, there's almost no one here," Applejack concluded.

The group watched as a young man in a suit and tailcoat rushed into the bar and ordered a drink. At this point the girls had had enough waiting around and were sick of the taste of the quickle beer, so they stood up to leave, but as soon as they stood up, their attention was drawn to the bar. The newcomer had taken one sip of his drink and burst into tears, and was now weeping uncontrollably. Without any other prompt, Fluttershy walked over to the distraught man, who was quickly making a puddle on the bar top, and started comforting him.

"There, there, what's wrong?"

Before the man could reply, Sunset had yanked Fluttershy away and was questioning her as to what she thought she was doing.

"I'm just trying to help. It's obvious he's very upset and I just wanted to know what was bothering him so much," Fluttershy explained timidly.

"Fluttershy, it's nice you want to help, but we don't really know how people around here act yet, we don't want to get into any trouble."

Turning to the man at the bar, she said, "I'm sorry sir, my friend didn't mean to bother you, we'll be going now."

To everyone's surprise, he turned around, and through tear-streaked eyes and a choked-up voice, he said, "No, wait. Please, you don't have to go, it's a welcome distraction. Not very many people are as kind as you to take an interest in my misery. Thank you."

"Oh thank you, but it's nothing special, don't you have people that care for you though?" Fluttershy responded, taking the seat next to the man. Behind them, Sunset looked to the other girls, but Applejack only shrugged in reply.

"No, that's not the thing. I do have a family and they care for me very much, but most strangers wouldn't care about how I'm feeling, and that really makes you stand out."

"Oh, um, thanks again. But why are you so upset? Did someone say something really, really mean to you?"

"Oh, no, it's not that trivial." The man said, wiping away some of his tears. "You see, I own a high-end clothing shop here in the building. To rent a space, I pay every month for it. But it's not a very popular shop, so I employ a few modellers to wear the clothes and draw people's attention. But all of my modellers say they can't make it for the next three days, my rent for the next month is due in four days, and I'm still nearly twenty Rounds short! I don't know what I'll do. If I can't get modellers, no one will buy my clothes, and if no one buys my clothes, I won't have enough money to keep my shop where it is, and without the shop, I don't know what else I can do to support myself!" As he finished, fresh tears erupted from his eyes and he started sobbing again.

Rarity put a hand on the man's shoulder. "Well, if what you're wearing is any indication of the quality of clothes you make, then I simply can't understand why people wouldn't want to buy any. As a dressmaker myself, I simply cannot allow this to happen. If you really need this then me and my friends will be more than happy to be your modellers for today at least."

The man looked at her like he was looking at his very own guardian angel.

"Really? You-you'd do that? For m-m-me?" he said, his voice cracking.

"Why, yes of course darling. You said it yourself, there is far too little kindness in this world. Of course, we can't do it for free, I'm afraid. But-"

"Oh, no, I would never dream of it! You'll get the pay that my regular modellers would get. I just wish you girls could stay a few days rather than just the one." Standing up, he wiped tears from his eyes, and took a moment to compose himself, then turned his attention back to the group.

"No matter. I'll work with what I have. And what I have is a miracle in the form of you lovely girls. You have no idea how much this means to me. Oh, and how silly of me, I haven't even introduced myself yet," giving them all a low bow he said, "My name is Rantavian Belarth. It's a pleasure to meet all of you, and I'm sure it will be a pleasure working with you all as well."

As they all introduced themselves to him, he shook each of their hands and beamed the whole time.

"One question," Twilight asked.

"Yes, my dear?"

"I hope this won't be a problem…" she started and nearly stopped at the change in Rantavian's expression, but continued on, hoping he would be okay with it. "Well, you see, I have a dog," she said, pointing at Spike, "And well, is it okay if he's in your store? I don't want him running off somewhere."

Rantavian burst out laughing, "Oh, of course dearie! That's no problem at all, I have a hamster that I bring with me to the store every day, I'm sure I could get something set up in the back of the store where your pup could hang out until the end of your shift.

"Alright, well then, we've got no time to lose! Follow me to my shop, and I'll see what I have that will complement each of you nicely when you wear it."

"My, my! These are simply divine!" Rarity's eyes sparkled as she looked at all the dresses that stood in the display of Rantavian's shop. Pulling her away from the window, Applejack dragged her along with the rest of the group as they walked through a pristine white store filled with luxurious dresses, suits, and clothes for all types of high-class societal meetings.

Going through the store into the back, Rantavian showed them his stock of dresses and let them take their pick, directing them to the staff changing rooms.

"You can change in here, when you're satisfied with the dress you want to showcase, let me take a look at you and we'll see if it works with the other ones, okay? Fantastic, thank you girls so much, I'm sure it'll just be amazing with your help."

"Well girls? What do you think? We found ourselves a very good way to make back the money Verdak gave us, and in such a great way too." Rarity asked, "Ooh! This one's cute. What do you think, girls?" she said, turning to show the rest of the group a dark blue gown with deep purple accents and tiny white diamonds that emphasized the curves on the dress, "Too formal?"

"Rarity," Applejack said with a chuckle, "ta you, nothing's too formal."

"I think it looks wonderful," Fluttershy added.

"Well, I'll consider it. There's no point in committing to just one if I find a better one later, I could just never forgive myself if I didn't know I was looking my best for something this important."

"Element of Generosity, everyone. She'll gladly help others, but only if she can look all prim and proper while doin' it," Applejack said, then continued to laugh.

"Laugh all you want Applejack, but don't forget, this is exactly what we're here for, so if I were you, I would suggest getting all "prim and proper" yourself."

Grabbing a few more dresses that interested her, Rarity took them into one of the changing rooms leaving Applejack to find something that wouldn't make her want to cover it with denim.

"Uuuuuuuuugh," Rainbow Dash said as she stretched out, finally able to stand after three hours of sitting, "Ohh, that feels much better."

Grey was a little ways away, talking with Jet, and a minute later he joined Rainbow again as they headed out of the Council Chamber and into the main building again.

"That's good. Now remember, keep your respirator on until we blend into the crowd in one of the lower levels. In the meantime, you can tell me what you learned today, and ask me any questions you wrote down from earlier today," Grey said as they left the Council Chamber and started through the massive exchange center.

"Oh, fine," she grumbled. Starting off like she would in a low-grade school assignment, she said, "Today I learned that the Leviathan's Fist is another government in the Territorial areas, one of three main ones, and that they've been invading neighboring territories. I also learned that the only thing everyone in there cares more about than getting rid of each other is making more money."

"Very good."

Rainbow Dash waited for him to say something else, to tell her that she had missed something, or to ask what else she learned, but he said nothing more.

"That's it?" She asked, "Just "very good"?"

"Yes. That's all. That's actually a bit more information than I expected you to learn today, so you did well."

"Hey! What do you mean? Are you saying you didn't expect me to learn _anything_?"

"Well you have proven yourself very adept at doing so, so far. If you want my opinion of you in that regard to change, then I suggest you work harder at it. But in all honesty now, the first thing you said, about the Leviathan's Fist, that was the sort of thing I had hoped you would pick up on, and that you'd remember a lot of similar things. But you said, what was it? "The only thing everyone in there cares more about than getting rid of each other is making more money," and that is correct. I am _extremely_ pleased that you figured that out. Some people don't learn it until their fourth or fifth time at a meeting, they think the Merchant Council actually cares about everyone in society, and all we want to do is make everything better for everyone."

"Yeah, but you guys kind of run the city, don't you?" Rainbow asked.

""Well, not exactly. Money runs this city. Those _with_ the money, get to decide how to get more and how to run those _without_ it. That's how money works."

"Hey, why doesn't the Council try to make the place better for everyone? I mean you guys have enough money to. From what I heard in there, some parts of the "free lands", or whatever they're called, are getting poorer and nobody there seemed willing to send aid."

"Aid? Send aid to a different part of the free lands, that's a good one. You may think that I, along with everyone else who was just in that room and anyone else who holds the same views as us is just selfish and don't care about anyone else, and you'd be a bit right, but more than that, no one sends aid around because in the free lands, every region and community has its own cycles. Business cycles, political cycles, market cycles, power cycles, weather cycles even. And nowhere is one place's cycles exactly synced up with another's, so if we were to send aid, then the wealth would eventually get spread across every square centimeter of land in the free lands and no one would be allowed to save themselves and rebuild from their lower standpoint. Does that make any sense?" Grey explained.

"Umm, not exactly."

"Here, why don't you take off the respirator now? It seems safe enough. You can take a deep breath, clear your thoughts, and you can try to figure it out."

Taking off the respirator, Rainbow Dash took Grey's advice and sucked in a huge lungful of air, thankful that it didn't smell like plastic, then leaned against a fruit stand they were passing by to try to make sense of what he had told her.

"Well, if you guys send money and supplies to another place, are you afraid there won't be enough here? I don't get it, you said you don't try to help others, so why would you care if you give some stuff to other regions?"

"Here, let me explain a few things. Let's take this fruit stand for example," Grey said, taking off his own gas mask and motioning to the stand Rainbow was leaning against. "If this stand wants to make money, it sells food, yes? Food is something that everyone is going to need, so the person running the stand can sell the food for a high price. Now let's say someone else also has fruit and starts selling it. Because they want people to buy their fruit rather than this guy's, they make the price lower. Because the people can now get food for a lower price, they buy it from the new seller instead. Because of this, the amount of business that the new fruit vendor gets is more than what the old one is getting, and the new vendor makes more money, even though his prices are lower. That makes sense, right?"

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with aid? And the fact that people are getting poorer?"

"Give me a minute, I'm getting to that," Grey said, "Now, this person is making money off of selling his fruit. But, because he's selling it a lower price, _and_ he's also selling something that people really need, he's helping the people who decide to buy from him. They don't have to spend as much for the same good food they could get at a higher price, and so, now they can spend their money on other things, like clothes and such. In this way, he's helping his community, _and_ creating a livelihood. And since the other fruit seller now isn't getting any customers, he also has to lower his prices to compete with the newer seller. This helps the community and both people because they are actively trying to make money without having their business stolen by the other person. This is how people become self-sufficient."

"I still don't see how-" Rainbow Dash started, before Grey interrupted her.

"That brings me to my next point. This way of doing business is practically law in most, if not all of the free lands, and so, if we were to give aid whenever people had hard times, what do you think could happen?"

"Umm, they would think that whenever hard times come, they would get help?"

"Exactly. By providing goods at a reasonable price, the seller makes money, and the customers save money, and everyone is better off. Now you were wondering why we don't actively help those that are poor. The danger in doing that is, one: where would the money come from? It would have to come from those who had made it, and some don't want to lose money, especially since some people can't really afford to split their income. The second problem with that is that, if you lose your job, or say, the fruit vendor has a bad crop one year and has no fruit to sell. He can always try to find work in some other way. Now if he doesn't or can't, and has to ask for help, and he gets financial aid just because he needs it, then anyone who says they "need" money is liable to get it. Can you see now why that would be a problem, and why we're so reluctant to do it?"

"I think so. If anyone can say they need money, they can get it, but that doesn't mean they're going to do anything to help themselves once they get the money."

"Wonderful, you got it exactly," Grey said, and for the first time, Rainbow saw him give a full, real smile. "Yes. If you could get money without working for it in any way, then I'm sure you'd take that opportunity. As would about 99 percent of the population in the Territorial Areas. And since they're all getting money, but not making any on their own, guess what happens? You know how I said that the people who have the money end up paying those who don't? Well soon they're out of money, and no one has anything. And that's why we don't really send financial aid anywhere. Sure it may seem cruel and heartless, and it certainly sounds so when you take into account there are good, hardworking people that fall on hard times and need help, but the risk is too great that the money would help keep parasitic scum, that do nothing for themselves or others, alive."

"Ok, I see where you're coming from, but there has to be a better way," Rainbow decided.

"I'm sure there is. You want to come up with it. Be my guest. In the meantime, this is how things are run, and no one really wants to invest time or money into making minimal positive changes in it."

She was about to object and say she would find a better way, but as soon as she realized what she was going to say, her voice died in her throat. These people were the government here, and they were running things in this world. Her job was to get home with her friends, not fix this world. She'd gotten too caught up in the affairs of it from the Meeting and now it was making her think weird.

As the two of them made their way through the marketplaces on each floor, Rainbow couldn't help but noticing all the types of things for sale. There was literally _everything_ here. A stand selling stamps, a robot-repair store, a computer modification shop. She saw a medicine shop, several more food stands, a bar, an oak restaurant sign in behind a stand selling bits of machinery, and a white storefront selling classy clothes. Rainbow Dash was about to let her gaze move on past the store when she saw her friends walking out, all laughing and waving to someone standing on the doorway. Tapping Grey on the shoulder, she pointed towards the group and they started towards them.

"Rainbow Daaaaaaaaaaash!" Pinkie screamed when she saw her, running up and giving her a huge hug.

"Hey RD, how was yer day?" Applejack asked.

"How else? It was so boring my brain was leaking out of my ears. I want to go out and _do_ something now, even just going for a run would feel a whole lot better. What did you girls get up to?"

"Oh, you know," Sunset answered, "Some of this, a bit of that."

Walking right up to Grey until she was standing uncomfortable close to him, Rarity looked up, fixing him with a serious stare, and dropped a small pouch into his hand.

"We're going to buy some dinner now, we've barely eaten all day. You can join us if you want. But you have to pay for yourself."

Turning away, she walked over to the rest of the girls, who were all stifling laughter as they waited for Grey to get a shocked expression on his face when he opened the pouch and counted all sixty Silver Plarts were there. However, he didn't open it and said, "How much is in here?"

"Sixty. Just like you gave us," Rarity said, getting a bit annoyed, "Do you want to count it?"

"No. But you're not getting dinner right now. If you girls can wait a half hour, we're going back to the inn to change and then I'm taking you all out for dinner. I'm going to meet a few friends of mine and we're going to discuss business and catch up, and I don't trust you enough to leave you alone somewhere."

"You're taking us out? Where?" Rarity asked suspiciously, "What kind of establishment is it? I don't want to go to any more bars."

"Don't worry, it's a very nice, quiet restaurant. It's the usual place that I meet up with my friends, and we always do so on the first evening of the Merchant Council Meeting."

"Who are these friends of yers? Applejack asked, "And why didn't you tell us this earlier?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise. I'm very pleased with all you girls today. Rainbow Dash learned something incredibly valuable today, and from the looks of it, you girls found a way to make money, and on the first day as well. That's impressive. Also, Rainbow Dash met one of my friends today, remember, Rainbow Dash? We're meeting up with Jet and a few more people I've partnered up with on business over the years."

"Oh, Jet? Who else? Is it Scarlet again?" She asked.

"No, not Scarlet. I don't think I'll be talking to Scarlet for a little while. I can tell you their names, but that won't really tell you anything about them. Why don't we just go and you'll see for yourself. I think you might get along with them a bit because they're also telling me I'm too cold and serious sometimes."

"Well, at least now we know that it isn't out of the ordinary to think like that," Rarity commented.

"Ooh, do you think they'll want to be our friends too?" Pinkie asked, "That would be great!"

"How do you figure meeting more people that are crazy enough to like Verdak is a good thing?" Rainbow sniped, giving a little laugh.

"Well it's better than meeting people who don't like me," Grey retorted, but not as harshly as he would if he was actually getting pissed.

"Yeah, and besides, the more people we get to know, the more likely we are to find someone who knows how we can get home, right?" Pinkie said.

"Actually, that's a pretty good point Pinkie," Sunset Shimmer remarked, "I hadn't thought of that."

"So, you all fine with it? It is a slightly higher-class restaurant than I usually frequent, but we go there every month, so the staff will be fine with your talkative natures. They sure as hell know how to put up with me and my friends when we get really into something."

"You didn't really buy us any nice clothes the other day, and our clothes from earlier are still dirty. If it's a nice restaurant, what are we going to wear?" Rarity asked.

Grey stared at her blankly.

"Actually, I'd forgotten about that," he replied, then hung his head back, "Shit. This means I have to spend more money on you girls, don't I?"

"It seems like it, darling."

"Damn it. Okay, let's go find some clothes you like. I'm not spending too much though," he warned, "I guess, you'll tell me how you made the money back later. You've already wandered around the place, have you seen anywhere that looks like it has nice clothes that won't burn a hole through my money pouch?"

The girls, other than Rainbow Dash, looked at each other and they all started smiling at each other.

"I think we know just the place," replied Rarity, leading the group off in the direction of Rantavian's store.

 **Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out to you, it was super long, I got writer's block a whole bunch of times, and I've had a crazy schedule with my exams recently. Please, if you like the story so far, be sure to give me some feedback! I'd really appreciate it! Thanks for being so patient with me, and chapter 7 and 8 are already partially written (I couldn't wait), so they should be posted faster than this one was. Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Dinner Discussion – Firing Practice

"You've got to be kidding me," Grey grumbled to himself. How had the girls managed to get him to buy such expensive dresses? They had picked somewhat inexpensive ones at the store they had taken him to, and they _had_ partially paid for their own dresses with what they had made that day, and yes, Grey hated to admit it, the dresses _did_ indeed look quite nice, but he still didn't understand how he had come to spend so much money on these girls. He had barely met them two days ago and he'd already spent more on them than he would on a perimeter defense drone. And now he had decided to bring them along to his usual dinner meet-up with Gunmetal, Jet, Ivory, and Traction.

Thinking it over in his head, he tried rationalizing his decision, but still had trouble believing himself. _It would be good for them to meet those guys, get to know how people like me work, and I certainly can't leave them at the inn, or on the Fortress Buster. They can't use weapons yet, so I can't let them go roaming around the city, and I already said I would take them, so it's really past the point of discussion._ He gave an inward sigh, _and yet, here I am, still discussing it with myself._

Focusing on the road again as he turned a bend on a road suspended sixty floors in the air, he couldn't help shake the feeling that although these might be good for him as a person, he as a businessman practically hated them. They had barely made back any of the money he had invested into them as his apprentices so far, and although that was to be expected-he had barely trained them at all yet and it would still be some time before their skills started developing and they could make significant contributions to his business-he was sure they cost more money than anyone else he had ever employed or brought along for work.

Perhaps he would have to have a discussion with the girls, but right now, his heart wasn't in it, and he just wanted to talk to some people who already had some semblance of what he wanted to talk about.

Arriving at the inn, he went to his room with some clothes while the girls took their dresses to their room, and went to shower and change.

Grey decided that he could use a shower too, and when he was done he changed into the grey suit he had brought with him, then knocked on the girl's room, telling them to meet him at the inn's office, which had benches outside. Despite having taken a long (by his standards) shower and taking his time to get to the office, Grey was irritated when the girls arrived twenty minutes later.

However, when he saw how they looked in the dresses he had gotten them, he had to ease off a bit. Even though he normally did not find humans attractive, he had to admit, the girls certainly looked stunning.

"Oh my, don't you make quite the striking figure," Rarity remarked when she caught sight of him.

"Thank you. You girls look lovely as well."

And they did. Even Rainbow Dash, who hadn't worked at the store they had bought the clothes from, was wearing a shorter dress that clearly brought out her eyes. Actually, now that Grey noticed it, all their dresses brought out their eyes.

His comment, by the way, made nearly all the girls blush, and made Grey think they had never been complimented before.

"Alright, everyone ready?" Grey asked.

The girls chorused with a round of "yup"s and piled into the Fortress Buster, all excited and ready for a night out on the town. Grey simply shook his head, _who knows, maybe once they meet my friends, they won't be so excited,_ but then again, these girls had surprised him several times already.

As they drove through the darkening city streets once again, Grey gave a little smile as he saw all the girls come forward and watch the fireworks display of color and new visuals, just like their first night in Crevice.

Maneuvering through an especially bright and spectacular portion of the city, Grey finally brought the massive, ungainly vehicle to a halt in front of a low, red building, with dark roofs reminiscent of oriental design.

As they entered, Grey said hello to the staff, most of whom obviously knew him by the way they returned the greeting, and the girls gaped at the inside of the restaurant.

Inside, dark paneled walls showed off red marble columns, and every table was lit by candles on the walls. The smell of perfume and incense permeated the air and gave the entire place an ethereal feeling.

Leading the girls through the restaurant, Grey moved over to a large table, easily large enough to seat a dozen people. Even so, he still had a few extra chairs pulled over from other tables, making the girls think there was going to be double the number of people their group consisted of.

"My, my, aren't you being quite the gentleman tonight," Rarity said as Grey seated the girls.

"Not really. It's just polite," he replied, emotionlessly.

"Oh, pff, khh, fff, he's ridiculous. Really, he can't even _act_ like a normal person," Rarity said to the others, then addressed Grey again, "That was a compliment, dear. You should really learn to recognize them. That and learn to lighten up a bit. This is supposed to be a nice evening, you said so yourself, we're meeting your friends. That's an occasion for a bit of fun and celebration, isn't it?"

"Well, we always get together to discuss business, so I don't know how much "celebration" there's going to be. I just know that with your personalities there's sure to be-"

He trailed off as several more people came into view and waved at them. Grey raised a hand in response as he finished his thought, "-some excitement."

There were four people, one woman, and three men. The woman was wearing a slim black dress and had a black feather boa wrapped around her shoulders, while the men were all dressed in suits, colors varying from dark grey, to bright red.

"Jet! Glad to see you again," Grey said, shaking the woman's hand.

Jet gave a little laugh, her voice tinkling like wind chimes without her mechanical mask, then walked over to an empty seat and sat down giving the girls a dazzling smile.

"Wow Grey, you really have changed! Are you all his apprentices?" She asked them.

They could just stare dumbly at her though. She was young, very pretty, and had fair pale skin, but across half her face was an entire collection of scars, making her look like someone had tried to give her surgery with a chainsaw. They didn't seem to bother her though, as she laughed at the looks on their faces.

"Ha ha ha! Oh, don't worry, I'm fine, these happened a long time ago. I can tell they still work at scaring people though. You know I used to be ashamed of these scars, but now I don't really care, I can get a good laugh out of them, so it's no biggie. My name's Wanda Portuff Jet. It's a pleasure to meet all of you," she said, extending a hand to each of them, having to stand up to reach across the table to some of the girls.

As the three men sat down, the girls saw that one was a teenager, even younger than they were, one was a man who looked to be in his thirties, and the other, the one in the red suit, looked to be about as old as Grey or Jet.

The man in the red suit, who looked to have an Oriental background, but was quite tall and handsome, introduced himself to each of the girls as Johnathan Traction, and finishing off by kissing Rarity on the hand, which made her blush.

The slightly older man in the cream suit, whose skin was a dark chocolate, said, "My name is Jelani Bobak Ivory. It is very nice to meet you. I see Grey here has gotten a bit more comfortable around people. But I'm sure he hasn't completely changed, so if he ever starts to annoy you with his business-only attitude, tell me and I'll have a chat with him." The man gave a hearty laugh, which brought a twinkle to his eyes.

"Nice to meetcha too!" Pinkie squeaked, excited as ever to meet new people.

"What's yer name?" Applejack asked the teen, who had stayed silent thus far.

"Me? Oh, uh, m-my name's Ernest. Ernest Wallaby. I-it's nice to meet all of you."

As the girls replied that it was nice to meet him as well, Grey took a seat on the side of the table with the girls, right beside Sunset Shimmer and directly opposite the big man named Ivory. Leaning over, he asked, "You had any contact with Gunmetal? Is he going to be here tonight?"

"Don't worry, Verdak, he'll be here. He was at the meeting, remember? I'm sure he's just late, like usual."

"I just wish he wasn't, though, it's getting to be a bad habit of his."

"So," Rainbow Dash, who was seated farther down said, clearing her throat, "Is this everyone?"

"Not yet. We're still waiting for one more person-"

"Two. Two more people," Ivory interrupted, "He has a new apprentice. I don't know who it is, but we just didn't see them at the Council Meeting because Gunmetal decided not to bring them."

"What? Why? That's such a stupid thing to do. I brought my apprentice," Jet said, motioning to Ernest, "It's a good learning opportunity for them."

"Hey, hey, I hear someone talking bad about me. That wouldn't happen to be Grey, would it? Or perhaps Jet?" came a voice from behind them. Just coming into view from behind a dark paneled wall, came a man with light brown hair and tan skin, followed by two more people, a boy and a girl.

"Gunmetal! You've got two apprentices?" exclaimed Jet.

"Yep. Best kids in the world!" He replied. As the three of them got seated Grey remarked, "So that's why you didn't bring them to the Council Meeting today. You're only allowed to bring one."

"Wait a minute, you said they're the best kids in the world, are they your kids?" Jet asked.

"No, no, you mistake my meaning, they're not mine, but they're still great kids. I kinda wish they were though, now that you think about it," he finished, trailing off into thought.

He introduce himself as Anston Kendrell Gunmetal, and then the group decided what they wanted to order.

Finally, everyone was seated and they ordered. Whereas Grey and his friends were regulars at the restaurant and had a pretty good idea of what they wanted to try this time around, the girls could barely even pronounce some of the stuff on the menu, and, if it hadn't been for the descriptions under each item, they probably would have ended up ordering whatever sounded the least poisonous. As it was, the chatter around the table was quite light and hearty while they all waited for their food to arrive.

Gunmetal was deep in conversation with Grey, unconvinced at his reasons for having so many apprentices at once, "It's unprecedented!" he said when Grey tried to argue against its peculiarity. Johnathan Traction was constantly trying to impress Rarity with stories of him fighting off bandits and marauders singlehandedly, in situations where he was outnumbered a hundred to one, Fluttershy and Applejack were asking Jet how she got the scars on her face, and Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were laughing at a joke Ivory had just told.

"I think everyone's getting along really well, don't you, Sunset?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah," Sunset Shimmer agreed, "It makes me wonder why Grey thought we wouldn't though."

At that moment, someone at the table brought up the topic of guns, and suddenly Jet was asking the girls what kind of weapons they liked the best.

'W-weapons?" Fluttershy responded, "Oh, no, I don't like weapons. I would never be able to forgive myself if I purposefully hurt anybody."

"Yes, she's quite right. Guns are horrid things," Rarity added, "I understand why Verdak carries them, but I detest the notion all the same."

"What!? Jet shouted, making them jump. "Guns are awesome! Plus they're made to keep you safe! How could you not like them?"

"Ah don't know about anyone else, but they certainly don't make me feel any safer," Applejack argued.

"Grey!" Jet growled, turning on him, "Why are they so soft? Haven't you even taken them out shooting yet?"

"No, not yet. I met them a few days ago, Jet, cut me some slack. They know they're going to learn how to use them and how to defend themselves. I'm just waiting until the Council Meeting's over before we start."

"Well I should think so!" she sniffed, "If you want I could come along sometime and help you teach them."

"Aww, come on, Jet. Have a little more faith in Grey. I mean, he _is_ the only one here who uses the most dangerous roads between cities and settlements as his main trade routes. I'm sure he can turn these girls into crack shots in no time," Traction said, "Not that you'll need much training, my dear." He said, addressing Rarity, "Why, I'm sure the only reason you don't want to use guns is because you're too fast a learner and don't want to embarrass your friends."

"Well…" Rainbow Dash interrupted his smooth-talking, "I'd like to- I mean, I wouldn't mind learning, you know, how to shoot."

"I think this comes partly from my past, but I kind of want to learn how to shoot too," Sunset Shimmer confessed. "It would definitely come in handy. I mean, I don't want to kill anyone, but learning how to shoot is definitely useful in this world."

"You've got that right. Mittie here's a pretty good shot too, and she's only eleven!" said Gunmetal, gesturing towards the girl on his right. "And Marty's decent as well," he finished, pointing to the boy. The two kids were twins. Both talked the exact same amount; zero, and both had super dark hair and eyes, which stood out against their light, white-grey skin. They were really young, as Gunmetal had said, they were eleven, and seemed even more emotionless than Grey when he was bored.

Nonetheless, despite their awkward lethargy, Gunmetal looked like he couldn't be more proud of them.

The conversation was cut short by the arrival of their dinner, at which point the girls realized just how hungry they were. They hadn't eaten anything at all since the crackers and quickle beer at lunch that day, and, with as much dignity as they could manage, started wolfing down their meals the moment it was placed in front of them.

The conversation lightened with the food, and in between mouthfuls, the girls told Grey's friends of their amazement with everything in Crevice, while they were told of deadly firefights and hilarious heists that they had pulled in the past.

Soon enough the talk got serious again. As most of the group were finishing, Grey and Traction opened the subject of the Merchant Council Meeting.

"All right everyone, tomorrow's the political game, and after that is when we shine. What have we got? Anyone know anything about what we're going up against this time around?"

Ivory was the first to speak, keeping to an undertone, "It's once again harder to move between territories and cities. Not only have the warlords been increasing the size of their gangs and armies, and tensions between them have been rising, but there have been more and more reports of marauders and sorcerers attacking people on roads."

"Sorcerers? I thought they kept to themselves, you know, 'cuz people try to kill them on sight," Jet said.

"Well they used to, but for some reason they've started coming out of their hidey-holes and making themselves known. I was attacked by two separate magic-users on my last trip," Grey explained, "They're getting braver, and that brings the question as to why."

"Well, I can't answer that one, but I've got something boggling for you guys to ponder," said Gunmetal, "Two weeks ago, I was in Blackglade, right? And this crazy old man comes out of nowhere, ranting and raving about having seen a "Holy Being". He just kept blabbering about seeing this person appear out of a flash of light and perform miracles and all else. Now at first I didn't believe none of it. I mean, who would? An old, disturbed, homeless dude walks out of an alley and starts talking about miracles? Its stuff you hear from any crazy person on the streets of any town or city. But then I overheard some of the residents complaining how the old blind guy was raving about something and waking people up again, and it hit me. They were talking about the same guy I had seen, and it turns out he's a got a bit of a reputation in that town, but the thing is, he's _blind_. And he locked eyes with me and told me he had seen someone perform miracles. Maybe one of them was to give this guy his sight back. Now how do you think that could work? Hmm? Because it sure beats the hell outta me."

"Magic?" Grey asked cautiously.

"More like someone "divine power". Using it to help others. Now where have we all heard that before?"

"The Following of the Enlightened," the traders all groaned together.

"Does this mean that something about their bogus prophecy is actually coming true? Or does this mean they're involved in something bigger?" Traction asked.

"Okay, sorry to interrupt, but we don't understand any of this," Sunset said, pointing out the confused faces of her friends.

"What do you mean?" asked Jet, "How have you never heard of the Following of the Enlightened? Its influence spreads throughout most of the Territorial Areas."

"I could explain to you the peculiar nature of these girls, but now is not the time," Grey said, "Long story short, let's just say they're from very far away and don't really know much of, well, anything really, that goes on in the Territorial Areas. So let's explain this a bit for their sakes."

"Fine," Ivory agreed, "But once the meeting's over, I want to hear everything. I know you're one to keep secrets, we all are, but this is looking awfully suspicious all of a sudden."

"Okay, sure. But," he said, addressing the girls, "The Following of the Enlightened is the dominant religion in the Territorial Areas, and it's about these four people who apparently became "enlightened" after discovering the true meaning of life, which they then wrote about in six volumes, and taught people about. They were said to have transcended this life, and when their followers were worthy enough, would return and bring transcendence to all who believed. Now I think it's a whole load of bullshit, but there are people who get very touchy and defensive about the subject, which is why I make a point out of trying not to start conflict with them. The thing is, they're a pretty power-hungry lot, and they're mired in secrets and are rumored to have ties to all three of the largest Territories."

"Oh, ok that-" Sunset started, but was interrupted by Jet.

"Ok, ok! We get it, but let's get back to the topic, we're getting sidetracked."

"Off topic?" Traction asked incredulously, "Jet, we never _start off_ with a topic. We just share our info from the past month. Or perhaps…" Standing up suddenly, he pointed an accusing finger at Jet and boomed with a huge smile on his face, "Perhaps you're an imposter and you've never actually been to our monthly dinners before!"

"Traction, quit being so dramatic, other people are starting to stare," Grey said quietly, reminding him that there were other people in the restaurant.

"Where were we? Oh, yes, I think it was my turn to talk," Traction said as he composed himself and sat down again. "Now, let's see, what exciting things happened to me during the last month? Aha! Ok, get this," he was practically shaking with excitement, "I was visiting my home town of Weathernaught, enjoying a lovely starlit dinner with some friends I have there-"

"If they're anything like the other "friends" you talk about, Traction, then I don't want to hear any of it. And keep your hands off Rarity, geez." Grey warned, "I've been keeping an eye on you the whole night, and you better not try anything with her. She's got no idea what it's like, some smooth talker coming up to her, enchanting her with your stories. You break her heart like all those other girls, and I'll break your legs. Multiple times."

"Hey man! I swear, I've changed! You've got nothing to fear anymore!" Looking at Rarity, who had fixed him with a suspicious stare, he said, "Hey, hey, sweetie, don't listen to him. I won't hurt you, I promise! There's nothing I would ever do to be dishonest with you, and I won't break your heart!" Suddenly looking back to Grey, he started getting some of his old air back and took control of the situation, giving Grey a knowing glance.

"I see how it is, you don't want me getting too close to this lovely young woman because you want her all for yourself, you sly dog!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Traction. You know I have no interest in relationships. And now I think we really _are_ getting distracted. You were supposed to be telling us what you found out in the time we've been apart."

"Don't change the subject so fast, Grey, I can tell, there's something going on between you two. Why else wouldn't you want me to get close to her?"

An emotionless Grey spoke back, "In the few days I've had these girls as my apprentices, it's cost me over two hundred Silver Plarts. If any one of them gets hurt, physically or emotionally, and can't work, then it'll take me even longer to make back the money it costs to keep them fed and sheltered."

"Ha! And you thought Verdak was in love with her!" Ivory laughed, "You should know better by now. All he cares about is stuff. Not feelings. Why would he need companionship if he has enough money that he wouldn't have to work anymore? It can't be the fact that he's a heartless weirdo, no, definitely not!"

"I'm not heartless," Grey said, "and since Traction is trying too hard to protect his pride to tell his story, as riveting as I'm sure it would be, I think I'll go next."

"No, no, fine, I'll say what I wanted to say. Eh-hem, so, as I was saying, we were having dinner at a lovely restaurant in my hometown, when we saw something fly across the sky. At first I thought they were shooting stars, they were moving so fast, but a second later, one of my friends had taken out a spyglass and was following them across the sky. And guess what? They were moving as fast as Jetsuits, but were much bigger. They must have been some kind of planes, but unlike any I think have ever existed. They were super-fast, like Blastjets, and yet they could make hairpin turns like nobody's business. I think it means that someone has finally figured out how to increase the size of inertia-altering fields."

"That's impossible!" Jet exclaimed, "Warden's Amplifier Law states that the inertia-altering field's diameter cannot exceed 4.227 meters! You'd have to break the New Physics laws!"

"Well then maybe somebody _did_ break it. I mean, laws were made to be broken, right?" Gunmetal joked.

"Not funny, Gunny. Traction, I know you love to pull our leg all the time, but this is just silly. You know information like that could start a panic and probably a manhunt, too, so don't say stupid things like this, okay?"

"Well, I hate to break it to you Jet, but I'm not making it up for once. I _may_ have exaggerated a bit when I said they could make hairpin turns, but they still had the turning radius of a helicopter, and that's no joke, it really is serious business."

"If someone's developed technology that allows for Blastjets to move as nimbly as a chopper, then it wouldn't just start a panic, it would start a war. Whoever had the information first would be able to decimate anyone else, hands down." Grey said gravely, "If multiple factions had planes with this technology, then they would destroy each other and everything else in their way."

"It would be the War Machine all over again," Ivory whispered.

"Um, sorry, we've been trying to keep up and follow along, but what's a war machine?" Twilight asked.

"Not _a_ war machine, honey," Gunmetal explained, " _The_ War Machine. It was the first armored airship ever made, and it absolutely obliterated everything in its path, until the rest of the age caught up with it and came up with weapons that could effectively counter it."

"How long did that take?" she asked.

"About fifteen years. During that time, everyone everywhere lived in fear of the War Machine. It was destroyed about eighty years ago, but the technology wasn't completely lost, and that's why there are airships now. But not everything was found out, and believe it or not, even though it's probably half their size, the War Machine could probably still take on today's modern Dreadnoughts and win."

"And you guys think something like that could happen now?" Fluttershy squeaked in fear.

"It's possible. Although I really hope that's not the case," he sighed.

"Shit. If these things are as fast as you say, then nowhere will be safe. I thought you were bullshitting us, Gunny," Jet said, "but if you're not, then stopping this might have to be our first priority."

"Agreed," Ivory concluded.

"Not agreed," Grey said, "I want to bring your attention back to magic. There's been a sudden influx of it onto the world, and it's been empowering those with the ability to use it far more than anyone's ever recorded before. I was attacked twice by magic users this last month: one could make me completely blind while he tried to kill me with conventional methods, and the other was so strong that she managed to re-create the Insanity Plague, and could even direct the people she infected. This is a serious problem, and if we're not careful, magic-users could potentially become a threat all across the Territorial Areas."

Sunset didn't think that what Grey had said had come out exactly the way he meant, nor was it quite as important as what Traction had said, but the looks on Grey's friend's faces made her think twice.

"The Insanity Plague?" Ivory whispered, "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely positive. Unfortunately. I saw her turn someone within a matter of seconds, and it just exploded from there."

"Do you know where she is? What happened to her? Is she still at large? Come on man! Give us the details!" Jet said loudly, trying her best to keep herself under control.

"She's dead. I killed her and everyone that I know got infected."

"Oh thank fuck. I don't know which is worse, the Insanity Plague, or this _new_ War Machine."

"Before I killed her though," Grey interrupted, "She told me she wasn't the only one who knew how to do it."

"OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" It seemed to be too much for Jet, because she planted her face in her palms and stopped talking.

Afterwards, when she had recovered a bit, the group restarted the conversation, but talked now instead on how they would move to be able to make a profit from the decisions of the Merchant Council the next day, and how they could take steps to benefit each other or harm their opponents. Rainbow Dash listened, but it sounded extremely similar to what she had seen during the Merchant Council Meeting earlier that day, the only difference being that here, there were people cooperating with each other to get things done.

As the evening drew to a close, the girls were all falling asleep and the twins, Mittie and Marty, had already done so, so Gunmetal needed some help getting them to his car, a low, lightly armored sports-looking car with spikes, a ramming grill, and several fixed machineguns facing forward and back.

After everyone paid, Grey and the girls made their way to the Fortress Buster, saying goodbye to his friends, as they all went to their respective vehicles. Sitting down in the driver's seat and starting the bus, Grey drove back to the inn without saying a word during the entire ride, not that the girls cared much; by the time he pulled into the inn's parking lot, they were practically asleep, and though he tried to wake them, Pinkie was out cold and he actually had to carry her. Rolling his eyes, he slung her over his shoulder, to which none of her friends really complained because it was so late, but a few of them shot him disapproving looks.

The next day, although Twilight wanted to accompany Grey to the Merchant Council Meeting after hearing a bit about it from Rainbow Dash, Grey explained that it wouldn't do for him to be switching out apprentices the whole time, and so Rainbow Dash and Twilight, both disappointed, reluctantly complied. Right before he left, Grey informed the rest of the girls after giving them 10 Silver Plarts each, that once again, they were to do whatever they could think of to return all of the money by the time he and Rainbow Dash were done with the Meeting for the day, and they would be doing the same thing the day after as well.

As Grey and Rainbow entered the Council Chamber, the rest of the girls entered Rantavian's shop once more, to be greeted with much hugging and tears when they asked him if they could work again for the last two days of the Council Meeting.

"Ahhhh, so we're finally done with this whole "Council" business?" Rainbow Dash said, stretching as she and Grey exited the Council Chamber on the evening of the third day.

"For the time being, yes. But like you saw today, we've got a whole slew of jobs piled up for the next month. I've got six orders from Ms. Aqua alone, and she operates out of one of the coastal cities; that's about as far from my place as possible, I'm picking up two shipments of Brilliantium from Green, one this week and the other in two weeks, not to mention that I've been given a few courier jobs until next month. I'll be really damn busy, and because there's so much to do, you girls will have lots to do as well, and be able to start working off your debts to me."

"Debts?"

"Well, yeah. I've kept track of how much you girls have cost me so far, and it's not too little, so the fact that I've got a lot of work that I'm going to need your girls' help with is good news for you."

"Oh, I see. So, it's actually lucky for you that you stumbled across us, huh?" Rainbow said with a smirk.

"You could say that, but I would be able to do it on my own anyway. I know my limitations."

"Riiiiight," she replied.

"Hey RD!" came the familiar voice of Applejack, "How was economics?" she asked, giving a little chuckle, as the two groups formed together on the ground floor of the Grand Trade Exchange Center.

"Hey, I didn't forget, you know," Rainbow started, ignoring Applejack and instead addressing Grey.

"Forget what?" Grey asked, temporarily confused.

"You said you would do something special for us if we all did really well, and, well, we did. I paid attention to the whole meeting, as boring as it was, and the others have made back your money, so now we're done, and I want to know what kind of surprise you have in store for us."

"I remember now. Yeah, okay. I've figured out something suitable, but you girls are going to have to wait until we get there to find out. Got it?"

"Yep."

"Sure."

"Okay."

"If you say so."

"Okie-doki-loki!"

"Alright."

"Shore thing."

"You're joking, right?" Rarity said, fixing Grey with a thoroughly unamused stare.

"Nope. Not in the least."

They were standing in an equipment store a few blocks away from the Grand Trade Exchange Center, and Grey was offering to buy them protective eyewear and earplugs, water canteens, and a melee weapon of their choice. Rarity had rolled her eyes and was trying not to bump into anything that looked too dusty in the small, item-packed shop, Fluttershy and Twilight were trying to feign interest in camouflage jackets, Pinkie, Sunset and Rainbow were looking over the collections of brass knuckles, butterfly knives, and crowbars, and Applejack was falling in love with a cowboy hat.

"I sense that you're less than thrilled," Grey observed.

"Umm, it's … a nice… offer." Fluttershy said, trying to find the right words to express herself.

"Yeah," sighed Pinkie Pie, "I guess it's not all exactly what we were expecting." When she saw that Grey had actually paid attention to her, she suddenly became extremely intrigued by a set of throwing knifes on display next to the brass knuckles.

"So, um, what exactly are we supposed to be doing here again?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I'm buying you girls a physical weapon of your choice. Also, I will be buying you goggles, earplugs and canteens of your choice as well, so go crazy. Everything in this store is pretty cheap, but of decent quality, so I'm willing to let you pick whatever you want for them."

"Umm, darling, I'm not sure if you realize this, but when you said a surprise, we didn't think you'd take us shopping for survival gear. Now if _I_ were to say I had a surprise, it would probably be a new blouse for one of my friends or something of the like. I would make it something they like, you know?" Rarity explained.

"Well, you can't say you weren't surprised by this though," Grey responded.

"Hahaha!" Pinkie started laughing, "Rarity, he got us there, you're not supposed to expect a surprise, and we sure didn't expect this! Heeheehee!"

"Oh yes, ha ha, very funny you two."

"Does anyone know what they want yet?" Grey asked.

"Um, I don't think I want a weapon, but I'll take this canteen and these goggles, they can magnify, I'm sure that will come in handy," Twilight said uncertainly.

"Eh, I'll take the baseball bat, at least I know how to use one" Rainbow Dash said, pointing to a metal baseball bat, and a moment later, to a pair of biker goggles, "And those, too, if I can."

"Ah wouldn't mind getting' the brass knuckles," Applejack told Grey, "Those ones, yeah, the ones that look like they're made o' rope."

As each of the girls picked out what they wanted from what was on display, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Sunset Shimmer were the only ones to actually select any kind of weapon.

When they were all done and back in the bus, Grey stopped to grab them all something to eat, and then they were off once again, back to the inn. When they arrived, Grey came with the girls into their room, which they were obviously confused and uncomfortable with, but Grey started explaining what they were doing for the last few hours of the day.

"Alright, like you've known for a little while now, I've got to teach you girls how to defend yourselves before we can go out into the Wastelands. Because it would take longer to learn physical combat than we have time at the moment, I'm going to teach you how to use firearms first. Hopefully, you can learn fast enough that you'll be able to take out any dangerous enemies from a distance before they get close enough to engage you hand-to-hand. So," he said, pulling out a small black pistol from inside his coat and placing it on the little table in the middle of the room, "Which one of you wants to show me how to safely pick up a gun?"

"B-but we don't know how to do that, Verdak. Aren't you going to show us first?" Fluttershy asked.

"Nope. I want to see which of you can figure it out. I trust you girls know not to pull the trigger as soon as you pick it up?"

"I've read about guns enough to take a crack at it." Twilight said, stepping forward, she hesitated for a second when her hand was just above it though, but then slowly grabbed the pistol by the grip and showed it to Grey, keeping her finger out of the trigger guard. She raised an eyebrow to silently ask whether she had done it correctly.

Grey simply grabbed the gun by the barrel and after Twilight had let go, he placed it back down on the tabletop. "Anyone else think they know how to safely pick up a gun?"

One by one, the girls silently picked up the pistol and held it very carefully, each with a slight variation to where they grabbed the gun and where they put their forefinger, after which, Grey would take it from them and place it back where it had been. When they were all finished, Grey looked around and said simply, "You all fail."

"What?! Hey you never told us what we were doing wrong! And nobody got hurt, so why'd we all fail?" Rainbow Dash burst out, her old dislike of Grey flaring up again.

"Do you girls really trust me? Because not one of you thought to ask me if the gun was loaded before trying to handle it. I understand none of you actually know how to safely pick up a gun, but I'm pretty sure the safest thing to do would have been to ask me if you could pick it up without the possibility of blowing half your face off in the process."

"Hey! Well, uh, oh ok, yeah that kind of makes sense I guess," Rainbow Dash mumbled.

"So, um," Fluttershy asked, " _I-Is_ the gun loaded?"

Pulling out the magazine, Grey showed them it was filled with brass casings.

"You gave us a loaded gun!?" Rarity gasped, "What if we'd accidentally shot someone?!"

"First rule of guns. Always check to see if they're loaded. Second rule of guns, check the safety."

"Safety? If it's loaded it's not very safe," Applejack huffed.

"No, the safety is a mechanism that every firearm has so as to not accidentally fire when doing things like moving or cleaning the gun. Of course, you never keep a gun loaded when you're cleaning it, but dry-firing, which is when you pull the trigger and there's no ammunition, can actually damage the gun. The safety on most pistols is this little button here, either on, or next to the trigger guard," Grey said, showing them what he was talking about. "When you push it, there's one of two colors. If you see the black side poking out, then that means the safety is on. If the red side is showing, then the safety is off and the gun can fire. An easy way to remember this is to remember red equals dead."

"Ok, how do we tell if it's loaded?" Pinkie asked.

After he showed them how to properly and safely check to see if a pistol was loaded, he let all of the girls try it several times, which they managed to do with little difficulty, and during which they still simmered from what he had just done. Afterwards, he went out, taking the gun with him again, and came back with a burlap sack a few minutes later, from which he produced over a dozen guns, most being pistols and revolvers, but also a few hunting rifles.

"Woah, woah! What is all this?!" Rarity yelled at the sight of all the steel-grey metal being placed in rows on the floor."

"This, is the rest of your girls' day. I'm going to be teaching you how to properly check each gun, how to safely handle it, and how to dismantle, clean, and put back together every single one of these."

The girls looked at him in shock, but then he continued, "Don't worry, it's not like you'll be confining the fun to one day, we're going to be doing this tomorrow and Thursday as well. After that I'll take you a shooting range for one day, and then we have to pick up some goods and we'll be back on the road."

The girls gaped at him.

Despite all their initial moaning and pestering, the girls actually proved to be quite adept at doing all the tasks that Grey had laid out for them, and each had gotten to at least half of the guns once before it was time to turn in. The next few days were filled with exactly what Grey had specified, and nothing else. Though they did learn to shoot, and at an extremely large indoor range situated ten levels down into the chasm that was Crevice's main feature, they were not all nearly at the same level of proficiency. On their day at the range, they were all pleased, except for maybe Grey who seemed more annoyed, to find that Jet was there as well, and while the girls were all more than happy to learn from her how to shoot properly as well, she seemed less interested in actually showing how things were done and more in just showing off. After an hour of frustration, Grey took the girls to a different section of the building so they could practice in peace.

At the end of the day, the girls had all come to dislike the sounds of gunfire, as even though they had been wearing ear protection, the fuzzy sounds of each other's voices, along with the intermittent shockwaves from the guns of everybody firing there, had driven them half-crazy by the time they finished. They were however, in Grey's opinion, ready to face the world for the first time. He had noted how each girl performed with each type of gun they had tried, and quickly memorized which ones they had come to favor, if just to make ammunition allotment easier in the future. Rarity, who absolutely hated anything that used lead in it by the end of the day, had chosen to go with a small revolver, which could be easily hidden in her sleeve. Pinkie Pie, who had somehow managed to change into and out of her spy outfit at least once throughout the course of the day, had opted for dual pistols with suppressors on them, to "accentuate her sneakiness" she told the rest. Twilight, because of her abysmal accuracy, had reluctantly accepted a pump-action shotgun from Grey, to negate this effect. However, the fact that she was possibly the most nervous handling a gun out of all of them, which was strange because she had shown the most confidence on their first lesson, meant that she could barely control the kickback of the gun, even with almost a whole day of Grey's nearly undivided attention. Rainbow Dash had also picked out a shotgun, and because of her athletic background, had a much easier time handling it than Twilight. Sunset Shimmer had opted for a regular rifle with no attachments, and as the day progressed, it turned out she wasn't half-bad with it either. To everyone's surprise, Fluttershy turned out to be the best shot among the whole group, with the exception of Grey himself, and she picked a high-powered rifle, with scope, kickstand, and suppressor. Lastly, Applejack surprised her friends by saying she'd had to hunt vermin on the farm with Big Mac a couple of times, to stop them from destroying the apple trees, and so she picked ended up with a double-barrel, break-action shotgun.

Although generally pleased with their performance, the girls finished the day hot, sweaty, ears hurting, and smelling of burnt gunpowder. Back at the inn, they all waited as each one used the only shower and told each other of the amazing (or spectacularly horrible) shots they had scored, and Grey took a moment to relax on the small bed in his room.

"Oh dammit, why the hell did I decide to take them on as apprentices? Their shooting is below-average, they take up way too much of my cash to keep on, and I've got no idea how having _seven_ more people is going to make me enough money to keep us alive. Plus that damn dog." Spike had had to stay on the bus during the day, while the group had been at the shooting range, where he had become incredibly miserable, and Twilight had had to take breaks from shooting and take him on walks to keep his spirits up.

"Maybe that's why her shooting sucks," Grey pondered. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, so he rolled off the bed and answered it. It was Sunset Shimmer.

"Hey, what's up? Do you girls need something?"

"No, umm, just…" Giving a small sigh, she hung her head a moment before looking Grey in the eye again and saying, "Look, we know you're trying to help us, and I'm not saying today wasn't cool, but I think we had just a bit too much of one thing these last few days. As fun as it is to shoot stuff, to be honest I didn't think it'd be fun at all, but it was, anyway, I'm getting off track, as fun as it was, we're all sick of guns now, and I don't think we'll be wanting to even look at them again anytime soon."

"Was that all? Did you really come here to tell me just how bored and tired you girls are of guns? I'm not stupid, Sunset, I can read it in your faces, I know you hated it most of the time. I didn't really enjoy myself either, in case you were wondering, but it needed to be done and frankly, I'm glad we got it out of the way early."

"Well, I mean, I am too, but next time, could we maybe," she started stammering under Grey's gaze, "c-could we maybe not do all of everything all at once, like, nonstop?"

"You mean, can I make it so work gets split up with different kinds in between each other, right?"

"Yeah, sort of, yes."

"No."

"Wha-?"

"We do things that have to be done, at the times they need to be done. That's how the real world works. If we need to do the same thing for a week straight, then we'll do it a week straight, if something takes three minutes to do, we'll do it for three minutes. This is work, Sunset, if you don't want to do it, then I don't have to give you food and shelter. Simple as that. You do what needs to be done, not what you want to do. Understand?"

He had said it with such disgust and disappointment in his voice that all Sunset Shimmer could utter in reply was, "Yes, sir."

"Alright, now go to bed, all of you. We've got an early morning tomorrow to get industrial-grade Sorkhum metal for a shipment to one of the towns in the Leviathan's Fist's territory, and then we need to pick up some Brilliantium from Mr. Green."

"Okay," Sunset sighed.

As she went back to her room to hear of Rainbow Dash's battle with Applejack over who had hit the targets that day more times, there was another, much quieter knock on Grey's door.

Looking suspiciously at the door, he once again crossed over to it and opened it, and before him stood Ivory and Jet, both with stony expressions.

"Hello Grey, we wanted to talk to you before you and the girls left tomorrow."

Grey narrowed his eyes a bit, but said nothing.

"You said that after the Merchant Council Meeting was done, you would explain to us why those girls seem clueless about everything in the Territorial areas. We just wanted to make sure you didn't skedaddle on us before you could keep your promise."

"Ah, of course, forgive me," He said, inviting the two in.

"Very well, you must understand that what I'm about to tell you is very dangerous information, and that it is completely confidential. This information does not leave this room."

The two looked at Grey with serious, if slightly skeptical, expressions, but they gave their word that they wouldn't tell anyone, and so, Grey told them about the girls, how they had properties of magic, and of how they had come from another world through a portal.

When he was finished, they had stony expressions, and he could tell they understood the gravity of the situation perfectly.

"S-so, they can actually use _magic?!_ " Jet cried in a hushed voice, "But I thought you hated magic, I mean, really, really, _hated_ it."

"I hate people who use magic stupidly or evilly for their own gains, because it's so rare, it gives magic-users incredible advantages over regular people, which they always use to take advantage of people."

"Grey, quit being such a hypocrite, you take advantage of people all the time," Ivory stated flatly.

"Not the same. I take advantage of people for profit using only my own mind and skills that I've learned over the years of being a merchant, and it's not like I do that all the time, only when people deserve it or the opportunity is perfect. I don't take advantage of them just for the sake of bettering myself specifically at others' expense."

"That's not a good explanation."

"Well I'm not going to re-word it, I feel like that's all I've got to say on that subject."

"You know, ever since those girls have shown up you've been blundering. You used to be able to convey your thoughts and explanations exactly, and so perfectly, now it's like your vocabulary is shrinking. Maybe they are using their magic on you, and it's making you stupid," Jet wondered.

"Don't be silly, Jet, Grey's always been stupid, it's just spreading to other parts of his brain now," Ivory chided, resulting in a short glare from Grey.

"Anyway, this isn't why you came here tonight. The reason I don't hate them, or at least not yet, is because they've shown no ill will towards, well, anybody, actually. And that's more peculiar than them actually being magic-users. They've shown none of the same characteristics of most other magic-users, which makes me think they really are from another world, and begs the question, what else could follow them? Now you two can't tell anyone of what I've told you today, it could mean the end of the whole damn world for all we know. Just keep it in mind, and now that you know, I want you to keep your ears open for any more sightings or reports of magic-users or magic seeping into this world, got it?" Grey explained.

"Yeah, sure, just one more thing. Next time, don't keep this sort of stuff from us, and stop being so very confusing. You seem like half the time you change your focus and views on things, and it's getting really hard to remember who you really are. The only thing I'm still sure of is that you're hell-bent on making yourself rich," Ivory pointed out.

"Well, at least you can understand that about me. Does this cover what you two wanted to know? Any other questions?"

"Yeah, why'd you take them on as apprentices? It's too much for you to handle," Jet asked, genuinely concerned.

Grey took a long while before answering, "If that's all, then you two should get going. It's late, and I'm sure you have things to do in the morning, as I do."

Shooting him unsatisfied glances, the two stood up and left, aware that they were politely being told to fuck off for the time being.

The next morning, as the seven girls, one man, and one dog left the inn for good, along with all their belongings. Inside the bus, Grey sat the girls down at the booth before speaking.

Alright, now before we leave, there's a couple of things that's still kind of urgent that we need to go over, and they pertain to weapons."

"Oh come on naow," Applejack cried, "We jus' got through three days o' nothin' but guns, why do we have te do it over again?"

"Relax, I know you girls are sick of your gun lessons. I am too. I just have to show you where all the hull-mounted machine guns are for exterior defense, that's all. Well, that and we can store your guns in my armory closet. I'm just going to get you all familiar with the machine guns' locations so you know where they are in case we need to use them in the Wastelands. Now, there are three light machineguns mounted throughout the bus, one right here," he said, pointing opposite the booth, where a tangle of metal pieces and struts stood about waist-high and stuck through the wall of the bus, "One back near the pivot joint, and the last one near the armory closet, which is the thing that looks like a safe right before that empty space at the back. There are also five heavy chain guns mounted in various locations of the hull. Now, they all have safeties as well, situated near the trigger guards, and they follow the same rule as the hand-helds. Black is safe, red is dead. Now don't go shooting off anything, but go familiarize yourselves with their locations. I need you to know where they are so you can react effectively if something happens to us in the Wastelands."

After they had moved through the bus and touched enough wrong instrument panels and devices to make Grey fume over the possibility that they would blow something up, as well as happily stuck their firearms in holders in the large gun safe Grey used as an armory, the girls met up again at the booth, with an already-exhausted Grey climbing behind the wheel of the bus.

They pulled out of the parking lot of the inn, the girls giving a few final backwards glances, and then were on their way. After about a half hour of driving, they stopped in an area filled with warehouses, where a few workers checked out some papers Grey handed them and then loaded up several large crates marked, "Sorkhum Metal: Industrial Grade: Class 6 Tradeable Good", after which, Grey, along with the girls, moved them to the rear of the Fortress Buster, in a sizeable empty area right behind the armory closet.

After that, they travelled to a small, out-of-the-way building in one of the underlevels in the trench crossing the middle of the city, where they met Mr. Green; a short, elderly man, with a long white beard and a horrible yellow fedora. A bit of haggling and arguing later, Grey paid Green several gold and silver coins and the girls were then forced to help Grey carry a few boxes onto the Fortress Buster. Sunset Shimmer read the sides of the boxes with a bit of concern, the words, "Danger! Processed Brilliantium: Reactor Grade: Class 7 Dangerous Good" stamped in bright yellow on the side.

"Are you sure this stuff is safe?" she asked Grey.

"Safe? Sunset, we're carrying very brittle, delicately shielded, highly radioactive reactor fuel. I'm more concerned with not dropping it than silly questions, because not only will it cost an arm and a leg to replace, but we'll lose our arms and legs, and everything else… probably."

"Ummm, why are we carrying this exactly then?" she asked, her voice getting higher and a bit fearful.

"Simple. Because it's an energy source I'll be needing and because I'd rather carry it than throw it to where it needs to be."

Still afraid of the box she was carrying, and not at all relieved from the answer she got from Grey, Sunset quickly brought her box to the back of the bus and placed it with all the others, skedaddling back to the booth where the other girls were just sitting down to as well.

"Alright then girls, say goodbye to Crevice, we won't be back for a month," Grey called back from the driver's seat, as they pulled away from the dark canyon wall and onto a ramp back up the surface.

"You'll be working much harder from now on, so I hope you enjoyed your little "vacation time", while you can."

Once at the city gates, and after a decent wait in the line of vehicles, Grey passed his papers to the exit guard to check over, and Sunset once again came up to the front of the bus, just out of Grey's sight. When everything checked out and Grey moved the bus through the city walls, sunset finally cleared her throat, announcing her presence, and asked, "Hey, Verdak. I noticed when we first came here, you said we'd be here for two to five weeks, but we've only been here nine days. What gives?"

"Technically we've been here ten days, but that aside, that's a very good question. It all comes from Crevice's laws and regulations, some of which are rather ridiculous and don't make any sense whatsoever. If we were to stay here for less than a week, but longer than three days, we would have to say that the length of our stay is one week, because the Wall issues tickets for the amount of time you declare you will stay in the city, but the next longest ticket after the week-length one is from two to five weeks. Now I know we didn't stay that long, and I never planned to, but we were going to be staying for more than a week, so I had to opt for a ticket with a longer time."

"So what you're saying, is that you can stay in the city for less than the time given on the ticket, but you can't stay longer, and because the tickets aren't given consecutive time lengths, you just pick the one that's closest to your length of stay."

"Exactly," Grey confirmed.

"Why would they do that? That's so confusing, and I bet there's a much easier way to get everyone's information on how long they want to stay here for than _that_."

"Perhaps, but by limiting the amount of different types of tickets the wall gives out, they can

save money on printing them out. Also, I know the laws of Crevice are strange, and I bet especially so compared to what you're used to. For example, when I killed Cardley, you were all very upset and tried to get me arrested."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Sunset replied, lowering her gaze and scratching the back of her head.

"No, it's understandable," Grey continued, "you obviously have different laws where you come from, but in Crevice, there are very few laws concerning murder. If someone does wrong against you, you re fully within the law to get revenge or protect yourself in whatever way you see fit. The only technicality comes once you ask how far you can appropriately go to solve your own problems in the city. That's where the CCSF, or Crevice City Security Force, really steps in. They're there to protect the citizens of the city first and foremost, and to make sure people follow the laws, however few there may be."

"That-that's really weird. That is _really_ different from what happens in our world," Sunset stammered, taken aback by how backward the laws and police force of the Territorial Areas were from back home in the human world and in Equestria.

Grey looked out the armored windshield, and watched as a lone falcon circled ahead of the bus, before turning once again to Sunset and saying, "Hey, why don't you go back to your friends, I bet they'd like to talk to you, plus it's about to get bumpy," almost as soon as he said that, the Fortress Buster began to shake quite a bit more, and Sunset began to have a bit of a hard time keeping her balance. Still in thought when she sat down, it took Pinkie Pie a few seconds of saying Sunset's name for her to look up and smile at her friends.

When Grey had brought up Cardley, it made her think of when they had been kidnapped. Cardley had said that he had been paid to kidnap them and deliver them to a customer, and that person must have known who they were and where they were staying to tip of Cardley like that. _Who could that have been though?_ thought Sunset.

Up at the front of the bus, Grey was thinking the exact same thing.

 **Hey again guys, sorry once again for the super long hiatus between this chapter and the last. I got a bit discouraged because not many people really read much last time I put up a chapter, and this one was again very long, plus I had personal life things getting in the way, like getting a new job and stuff, and writer's block, but I hope you accept my apology and liked this chapter. Like I said in the last one, I have already started working on chapter 8 and that one should be coming out much, MUCH faster, as I'm super excited about it and you guys'll finally get to see some action, and not just boring talk and story set-up. So look forward to that as I try my best to complete it in due time, and thanks all for sticking with this story, it means a lot to me. Thanks!**

 **P.S. Please feel free to let me know what you think of the story so far, either by leaving a review, or by pm-ing me, I won't mind!**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Danger In The Wastelands – The Hell Storm

It took them until noon to leave behind the plains and now the monstrous vehicle was once again barreling through the near-featureless landscape, a dust cloud rising behind it.

Grey had the armored windows as open as they could be, so the inside wasn't as hot and stifling as would have been expected. In fact, it was still cool enough that Grey, in his long grey coat, was still reasonably comfortable.

Grey glanced behind him, into the depths of the segmented bus. The girls had been too used to being driven around on proper roads, and now that they were passing over cracked and broken highways, and gravel roads, they were having trouble standing up and moving around inside the bus, having to hold onto something whenever they did so.

The only one that seemed not at all bothered by the jittery motion of the bus was Pinkie Pie, who would throw her hands in the air with every major jolt, and scream, "This is so fun! Whee!"

"Trust me Pinkie, this is _not_ fun," Rainbow Dash said.

Making her way to the front, Rainbow managed to keep her balance by leaning on her metal baseball bat.

"Hey Grey, how much longer 'till we can stop for lunch? We're getting pretty hungry back there."

"Don't worry, we'll be taking a break soo-" Grey stopped mid-sentence. Before he could finish, something caught his eye through the windshield.

"…Soon?" Rainbow finished for him, not realizing something outside had gotten his attention

"What is it? What's wrong?" she asked, noticing the look of concentration on his face.

"Tell the girls to strap down any loose items and make sure they're all geared up. Don't forget to tell everyone to put in earplugs. I think we've run into trouble."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. Go."

As Rainbow Dash scrambled back through the bus, getting everyone's attention while at the same time handing out earplugs to the rest of the girls, Grey looked at the control panel on his left and started flicking switches to close the windows.

Glancing back out the windshield, he saw the tiny shape of the car he had spotted earlier on a large hill, disappear over the far side. _Well,_ Grey thought, _maybe we'll have a bit of fun with this._

Just then, Rarity and Applejack walked up to Grey, holding onto each other for support.

"Hey, Verdak, what's goin' on? Why'd Rainbow Dash tell us te get geared up? Some kind o' trouble?"

"Possibly. I spotted a vehicle up on that ridge," Grey said, pointing to the spot where he had seen the car in the distance.

"I want us to be ready if anything happens. Is the armory closet open?"

"Yep," Applejack said, "Ye really think we'll have te fight someone off?

"Some _one_? No. If there's only one, then they won't dare take their chances against us. But if there's a group of raiders or something else, then yeah, you can expect to have to dodge a few bullets."

Applejack and Rarity exchanged an uneasy glance.

"Are ya sure we're ready for this?"

"You're going to have to be. Besides, we have to see how well you all react in dangerous situations."

"Well, I for one find it preposterous to think that we can't simply talk this out and find a negotiable compromise like civilized people," Rarity scoffed.

Suddenly, a bullet hit the glass of the windshield, cracking it, making a small crater in it, and causing both Applejack and Rarity to flinch back away from it.

Grey just cast the bullet, which was embedded in the glass, an offhand glance before returning his attention back to Rarity.

"There's your 'negotiable compromise'. It seems the other party doesn't agree with you offer."

"Did someone say party? Where's the party!" yelled Pinkie Pie from the back of the bus.

As the three watched a whole group of mismatched vehicles sped over the hill and roared straight towards the Fortress Buster.

"Where are your earplugs?" Grey asked, raising his voice and pushing a series of buttons and switches on the control panel above him.

"Right here," Applejack and Rarity replied in unison, both showing him their earplugs.

"Put them in! What are you waiting for?"

Applejack didn't get a chance to reply, because just then, a machine gun from one of the approaching cars opened fire and bullets sparked and pinged off the bus's heavy armor.

"Everyone! Man the gun ports! If you see a target, remember to aim in before firing!" Grey yelled back.

As the girls scrambled throughout the bus to get to one of the several short-barrelled machine guns set in gun ports throughout the walls, a loud, constant, _pow-pow-pow-pow_ , along with the chattering of automatic fire started up and shots started streaming out towards the approaching group of raiders.

"What's that sound?" Sunset screamed over the sound of the gunfire.

"That's the automatic weapons systems," Grey yelled back," I've got a few auto-targeting machine guns on the roof, and the super loud one is an autocannon!"

One of the cars in front of them started getting hit by the powerful shots of the autocannon, and after a few seconds it exploded into flames, black smoke belching from the cabin of the ruined vehicle.

"One down," Grey muttered under his breath.

In response, the incoming fire increased tenfold, and the inside of the bus began to sound like the interior of a tin can in a hailstorm.

From her niche in between two of the bunk rooms, Rainbow Dash huddled, looking through a small slot in the wall, her hands tight on the stock of a chain gun that poked through it. Before she knew it, armored and modified cars of all kinds, at least a dozen of them, sped past the viewport, bullets flying from them to bounce off the sides of the Fortress Buster. One sparked near the vision port where Rainbow was crouched, causing her to recoil, before she remembered that she was supposed to be shooting back.

Grabbing a hold of the grip, she tracked one of the raiders' vehicles and pulled the trigger, shooting a spray of hot lead in the direction of the enemy. However, it lasted only a second because Rainbow Dash let go of the trigger almost immediately, the massive shuddering of the gun caused her teeth to chatter so hard they hurt, and even though she had earplugs stuffed in her ears as far as they would go, the sound of the rapid-fire weapon left a high-pitched whine in her head that took a few seconds to disappear.

Looking back out the viewport, she saw that a sedan with flat blades welded all over the outside of the vehicle had pulled up alongside the bus, and a gun with a metal shield on the roof was pointing directly at her. Not wanting to see what happened next, Rainbow closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and pulled the trigger again.

But the gun wasn't pointing at the enemy gunner, it was pointing straight out, meaning it was directed straight at the driver instead.

The gun fired a barrage of projectiles, shredding up the driver of the attack car, and making him lurch the car to the side, pulling it away from the bus and throwing off the gunner's aim, whose bullets went wide and bounced harmlessly off the bus's welded armor plating.

An explosion caught Rainbow Dash' attention as the engine of an armored SUV caught fire. At that moment, she noticed the other streams of bullets coming out of other areas of the Fortress Buster to harass the raiders' vehicles. The screams of the people inside the burning SUV cut through the confusion of battle to her, the realization of what she had just done to the other car washing over her.

 _Oh… my…g-g-g… I just killed someone! I…just… I just killed…! Someone is_ dead _! Because of_ me _!_ She felt suddenly sick, like she wanted to throw up. She tried to reason with herself, but couldn't convince herself of anything, _they were going to kill me! And all my friends! I-I had to!_

Just then, another explosion, one strong enough and close enough to rock the bus from side to side, snapped Rainbow out of her state of shock.

The explosion made Fluttershy, who had just been running past, fall to the floor of the bus. As Rainbow Dash paused to help her up, Fluttershy looked at her with a panicked expression and screamed shrilly, "Some of them got onto the roof! What do we do?"

Rainbow was about to reply when the bus lurched hard to the right and she and Fluttershy were sent flying towards the opposite wall. Glancing out of the armored gun port, Rainbow Dash saw two figures, thrown from the roof of the Fortress Buster, hit the ground outside, where almost instantly they were run over by another raider vehicle.

"Well," Rainbow Dash yelled to Fluttershy, "I guess that worked."

 _Why won't this work?_ Sunset Shimmer thought furiously, a silent snarl on her lips.

The machinegun she had chosen to operate, situated in the wall just behind and on the opposite side of the bus as the seat booth, had jammed. She was working a pen behind the stuck cartridge, moving it back and forth furiously, but to no avail.

Pinkie Pie came up behind her with a shotgun in one hand and some shells in the other.

"Fluttershy and I saw some guys get onto the roof, so I'm handing out guns, just in case!" She yelled.

Turning to look at her, Sunset spotted a figure she didn't recognize standing behind the pink-haired girl.

"Look out!" sunset yelled, but it was too late. Pinkie's eyes opened wide in shock, as did her mouth. Dropping the gun and shells, she fell to her knees and then onto her side, a pool of blood already spreading underneath her.

Snatching up the fallen shotgun, Sunset Shimmer aimed it point-blank at the man's chest and pulled the trigger.

Click.

It wasn't loaded.

Sunset wasn't about to give up however, and fueled by her rage, she leapt at the raider, who she just realized was holding a bloody knife.

Using the shotgun to hit the knife out of the man's hand, she tackled him to the floor of the bus.

Although her fury was fueling her muscles, the man was stronger than her, and he soon had his hands around her throat. As she was trying to buck the raider off of her, something big, either another explosion or vehicle, hit the Fortress Buster, giving it a huge jolt and throwing both Sunset and the Raider right to the front of the bus.

The raider recovered first, and before Sunset Shimmer could take more than a couple of short breaths, he started choking her again and she felt her vision going dim; her struggles growing weaker.

Looking past the raider's leering, scarred face, she saw Grey turn his head and lock eyes with her. Pulling out his huge pistol, he placed the barrel of the gun on the back of the man's bald head for just a split second, angling it so that it was just out of line with Sunset's head underneath, and pulled the trigger.

The raider's face exploded outward, showering Sunset Shimmer with warm blood and bits of meat and bone, while the bullet continued straight through the floor.

Scrambling to her feet, she wiped the blood from her eyes and spat it out of her mouth.

"Close that hatch!" Grey yelled, jabbing his thumb in the direction of an open hatch in the ceiling, where the raider must have come in through. Jumping up and grabbing the handle, Sunset closed the hatch and turned the handle, locking it.

Finally having a momentary break in the action, she remembered Pinkie Pie, and rushed over to where the usually joyous and silly girl lay, a pool of blood surrounding her.

Pinkie's eyes fluttered open briefly, and she uttered, "Did we get them?"

"Yeah Pinkie," Sunset whispered, her voice cracking, "We got 'em."

"Good," the pink-haired girl sighed as she struggled to stay conscious, "Well then… we need… a victory par-party…"

As Sunset ripped of her jacket and rolled Pinkie onto her side so she could put pressure on the knife wound in her back and staunch the bleeding, the girl slumped over unmoving. About to become hysterical, a tiny voice in the back of sunset Shimmer's mind told her that Grey went through danger like this for a living, so he must know how to deal with the situation.

Turning to the front, she screamed, her voice going hoarse, "Verdak! I need your help! Pinkie Pie's been stabbed and I can't stop the bleeding!"

His reply of, 'I'm a little busy at the moment!" was drowned out as a bullet from the outside found its way through one of the miniscule openings in the side of the bus and started ricocheting throughout the interior.

After a second, although it felt like an hour to Sunset, the bullet sped to the back of the bus and hit something that didn't cause it to bounce back, temporarily clearing the air once again.

Sunset was going to scream for Grey's help again, tears streaming down her cheeks now, when the entire bus shook and an enormous roar outside reverberated throughout the entire area they were driving through.

Sunset stole a glance outside and saw a huge, navy-blue, shell blur past the viewport. Looking to the front of the bus and out the windshield, she saw what looked like a huge, dark blue centipede surge past and plow straight into one of the cars in front of them.

"FUCK!" Grey screamed, "Those morons! They've steered us straight into a Scalerrack field!"

Sunset was too distraught to even ask what he was talking about, and was too confused by the sudden events to form the words to. As she watched, several more of the centipede-like creatures surged up out of the sandy ground and started chasing after some of the other cars, but all she could do was continue holding Pinkie Pie's limp form and cry.

 _We're going to die,_ was all she managed to think.

"What's a Scalerrack?" Applejack yelled from the rear of the bus, as she tried to fight her way to the front, however, the increasingly violent rocking of the bus making it nearly impossible.

Somehow Grey had heard her and yelled back, "Those things! Those are Scalerrack, and they're nasty as all hell!"

"How do we lose 'em?"

"We don't! We have to either kill them or scare them off!"

"What!?" Applejack screeched in surprise, "Whaddya mean we can't lose 'em?"

"They can run faster than this bus can drive, that's what I mean! And they can go over terrain we can't!"

Somehow, Applejack had reached where Sunset and Pinkie were. When she saw the amount of blood on the floor and Sunset's expression, her heart fell to her stomach and all she could whisper was a small, "no…"

Steeling herself, she made it the last bit to the driver's seat where Grey was uttering a continuous stream of curses under his breath, and saw the carnage occurring around them.

The Scalerrack were at least as large as their own bus, and had triangular, heavily armored heads, their mouths opening with three jaws, and their blood-red legs moved so fast, they looked like red wheels carrying their bodies along the dry ground. The raiders swerved all over the place, bouncing over rocky terrain and trying to outrun the enormous beasts, but to no avail. There only seemed like there were three of the creatures, but they were running down the enemy vehicles and ripping the occupants out with long, fleshy masses of tendrils extending from their mouths, all while moving at over a hundred kph. To Applejack, it looked like the creatures had no eyes, but they were deftly dodging around rocky outcroppings and dips in the terrain with extreme ease, while either directly attacking the fleeing cars or letting them get smashed to scrap when they collided with their thick shells. Luckily, both the raiders and the automatic guns on the Fortress Buster were shooting at them, but other than the autocannon, they bullets seemed to have little or no effect on the monsters. While the autocannon _was_ doing something, occasionally punching through the flexible sections in between each segment of their long bodies, it did nothing more than annoy the Scalerrack, and barely kept them at bay.

The good news was that the raiders had long abandoned their pursuit of the Fortress Buster and were now focusing only on their own survival, which was not going quite as well as the bus's. There were only six raider vehicles left at this point, from an original force of at least twenty, and that number was dwindling with the relentless assault of the Scalerrack. As the enemy vehicles peeled off and tried to outrun the monsters on flat ground, two of the big creatures followed, leaving only the original one to continue beside the bus. However, since there was nothing else to distract it, the final Scalerrack was now trying to get past the heavy metal slugs peppering the side of its long body, and slowly succeeding. Suddenly the sound of the engine roaring, and the gravel racing underneath, and the _clack-crack-clack-crack_ of the beast's legs running beside the Fortress Buster became extremely prominent.

"Oh, shit…" Grey muttered.

"What happened?" Applejack yelled.

"Autocannon stopped," he yelled back, "It's out of ammo! There's nothing stopping it from attacking us anymore!"

As soon as he finished saying that, a huge crashing sound came from the side of the vehicle and everything and everyone was forcibly thrown to the opposite side.

Glancing through one of the small windows, Applejack saw that the Scalerrack had extended its fleshy tendril-tongue, and it was traveling all over the side of the bus, looking for an opening. Luckily, Grey had closed the windows when he had first caught sight of the raiders.

At that moment, she heard him moan.

"Oh, _fuck_ … you've got to be kidding me."

"What now?" she said exasperatedly, and turned to the windshield to see.

They were headed towards a giant storm that was rushing straight towards them from the horizon. Black, grey and red clouds towered into the air and in a minute it was close enough that it blocked out the sun and half the sky. The imposing wall of clouds and dust looked impenetrable, and yet, they were racing straight towards it, the Scalerrack practically climbing on top of the bus now, still trying to find a handhold, or rather, _tongue-hold_ , in order to rip the vehicle apart and devour its occupants.

"What is _that!?_ " Rarity screamed, making herself heard over the rising winds. Applejack had been so taken in by the storm that she hadn't even noticed Rarity come up next to her. As close as they were now, they could see a faint orange glow inside the storm, giving it the reddish-black color, and flashes of light occasionally reached the surface, giving it the feeling of a volcano about to erupt.

"That, is a Hell Storm, very aptly named, let me assure you, and a death trap for anything caught out in the open."

"Like us?"

"Like us."

"Why are we headin' toward it then?" Applejack yelled.

"Because," Grey had to scream now to be heard over the roar of the clouds whipping just kilometers away, "It's the only thing we can do to get rid of the Scalerrack, and if we don't, it'll eventually rip its way in here and kill us all!"

Finally, the Scalerrack decided it had had enough, and broke off its attack. As soon as it did, it began to burrow into the ground and in no time, had already slipped halfway into the hole it was making.

"From how far it is right now, I'd say we have about fifteen seconds. Tell everyone to put on some goggles and hunker down! Whatever you do, stay on the floor! And don't touch the walls!" Grey shouted.

Rarity ran to relay the message to the others, while Applejack helped Sunset Shimmer move Pinkie Pie's fallen body into one of the rooms and onto one of the bunk beds.

They were only about halfway to the doorway of a room when the bus collided with the wall of the storm and everything was lost to darkness.

Twilight huddled with Spike at the back of the bus, near the armory, and squeezed her eyes shut. Sand and dust were whipping in through the miniscule holes and windows all over the Fortress Buster and were flying so fast they stung like needles while the whole vehicle shook like it was being tossed around in a hurricane. Grabbing her goggles off her forehead, she managed to force them over her eyes and, checking that everyone she came across was doing fine, she crawled her way to Grey at the front of the bus and saw, in the darkness, punctuated only by rare flashes of light coming from deeper in the storm, that he had somehow, miraculously, managed to put on his gas mask while still driving the bus.

"Why is it called a Hell Storm?" She yelled, trying to get his attention. The bus, at that moment, burst into a clear-ish space within the storm cloud at that moment, and all Grey did was point out the windshield to the suddenly visible interior of the storm.

Twilight's jaw dropped, and all thoughts erased themselves from her mind, to be replaced by only two things: indescribably awe, and inescapable fear.

The heart of the storm truly was hell.

Dust and sand whirled about in massive brown clouds that crossed their view faster than the bus was moving, rocks and debris flew past faster than the eye could track, and black clouds hung in the air kilometers above them, rushing past as fast as sports cars. Some parts were bright red, and from them, tornados made of fire, enormous pillars of flame, reached down from the cloud ceiling to hit the ground and twist and undulate in random paths, leaving nothing but blackened paths of destruction gouged into the ground. Trails of fire, hundreds of meters long, swirled around the tornados, as gentle as wisps of smoke, but then Twilight saw a rock the size of their bus get sucked up by one of the flaming pillars and cross one of the fire trails, getting cut in half instantly and the two parts were transformed into melting blobs that were quickly consumed by the tornado. The entire thing gave the massive air pocket a red hellish glow, but there were other colors as well. All over the place, bolts of blue-white lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, and struck the ground, making deep craters, that caused chunks of red-hot rock and flaming debris to fly off, and that sparked electricity for several seconds after the lightning had disappeared. Noxious green and yellow clouds of poisonous gases hung, suspended in the air from updrafts caused by all the heat, and black smoke from all the burning materials constantly snaked its way towards the clouds which created a solid black, oppressive ceiling from which the occasional flaming rock or piece of debris would scream down out of, like a meteor, to impact on the ground and create miniature shockwaves.

Twilight stood frozen, looking through her goggles at the spectacle, when a rock flew by, large enough to crush their bus, and shook the bus so hard Twilight lost her balance and went tumbling to the floor. Looking over, she saw Applejack and Sunset Shimmer cradling the body of Pinkie Pie in the doorway of the nearest room, and the situation suddenly felt unreal, like she was watching it from outside her body, and not actually experiencing it. A moment later though, the feeling was gone, and the reality of everything came rushing back and hit her with a force like the Fortress Buster itself.

 _We could die… we could really die here!_ She thought, tears welling up in her eyes, _I don't want to die here, I want to go home, I want to see my family again! I want things to go back to the way they were when I first transferred to Canterlot High! Why did this have to happen?_ Crying openly now, practically bawling her eyes out, Twilight started a chain reaction. First Sunset and Applejack, distraught over Pinkie Pie, then Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash joined in, all crying over their belief that none of them would survive their ordeal.

Grey looked back at all the broken girls, and started getting frustrated. He was about to yell at them to shut up and sit tight, and to not worry, he'd get them all through this, when something hit the side right side of the Fortress Buster, and something exploded.

Instantly everything was chaos. A huge gaping hole was ripped in the side of the bus, near the rear, and dust, sand, and debris started raining in, bouncing about the interior like tiny bullets. The monstrous bus rocked from side to side, sending everyone flying, Grey barely managing to hold onto the steering wheel as he was flung from his seat. Fluttershy was almost thrown out the hole created by the explosion, but was held onto by Rainbow Dash at the last second, saving her life. As it was, she cut her hands quite badly on the edges of the shorn metal, and a flying bit of glass bit quite deeply into her shoulder. As soon as she was fully inside the bus, she collapsed on the floor and lost consciousness. Rainbow Dash tried protecting her friend's body with her own, which earned her several bruises from rocks flying in and hitting her on the back.

Rarity scrambled away from the hole and towards the front, towards relative safety, as Grey got control of the Fortress Buster once again, and, sighting a rocky outcropping, steered the wounded bus towards it with as much speed as the vehicle could muster. Twilight heard a faint barking and realized Spike was still at the back of the bus, and despite her terror of the rapidly decaying situation around them, she found the courage to run past the hole in the wall and scooped him up, holding him close to her while she huddled on the floor.

Applejack and Sunset were doing their best to protect Pinkie Pie's body from the rocks and bits of metal that were flying around the interior of the bus, and managed to get her into the room they were partially in and close the door. Rarity clung to the support of the table in the booth behind Grey, and Grey was struggling to keep the bucking of the bus under control, but as if their luck couldn't get any worse, a flaming tornado suddenly loomed large directly in their path to the large rocks.

Grey drove right in, and despite driving over the suddenly scorched and melting surface left in the wake of the tornado, the wheels were not on it long enough to melt or burst, and the tornado had passed as quickly as it had appeared. The bus was pulled a bit in the direction of the undulating fire, but Grey quickly adjusted course. Just as the bus reached the rocky outcropping and took shelter beside a large boulder the size of a house, a meteor hit next to them, showering the vehicle in rocks and dirt, which dented the wall beside Grey and added several new cracks to the windshield. The next moments were the longest of their lives. Listening to the howling and roaring of the Hell Storm, and feeling the constant buffeting of the Fortress Buster by the whirling gale, made everyone think they would die at any moment. Slowly, the bus accumulated more and more dents, and another, smaller explosion on the outside a few minutes later, opened up a fist-sized hole in the heavy armor right above where Twilight was crouching at the back, and the started showering her with sand.

Huddled in fright, the only light came from the hellish red glow that permeated the area and the flashes of blue lighting that struck the ground around them, it came as a shock when everything went dark again and a sand whirled about as heavily as fog. Just a few minutes after however, the light returned, and this time it wasn't from the interior of the storm, but rather from the sunlight of the outside world again. Grey managed to shake the layer of silt off of himself and looked out through the hole in his bus at the retreating storm. Rushing away at the speed of a freight train, the wall of dust looked as impenetrable as ever, and Grey sighed in relief for the fact that they had gotten through it with their lives. Shaking the rest of the sand off himself, Grey groaned in pain from all the hail-like stones that had hit him over the course of the storm. Looking around at the other girls, he remembered how Pinkie had been injured and limped over to the door of the room that she, Sunset Shimmer, and Applejack had taken refuge in. Forcing the door open, he saw, on top of boxes of supplies, the three girls were lain out and Pinkie was still bleeding slightly, but the flow had staunched a bit from all the sand that had accumulated around the wound. Sifting through the boxes, he found one with medical supplies and began sorting out the equipment he would need. He began to prepare a needle with tough thread for a suture, alcohol for cleaning out wounds, and various other makeshift field surgical equipment. Rousing the unconscious Sunset and Applejack, he instructed them to move Pinkie's body into the next room, where there was a bed with easier access. Setting up his supplies, he tried removing Pinkie's shirt to get a clear look at the stab wound in her back, but Sunset and Applejack stopped him, afraid of what he was thinking of doing, still shell-shocked and not processing everything correctly. Giving them a stern look, he told them to leave the room and leave him alone unless he called them.

"Go check the others. See what their injuries are, and prepare to send the most injured in as soon as I'm done with Pinkie."

"Oh, o-okay…" they replied, not quite themselves.

 _Well what did they think? They just survived a Hell Storm, they should realize how lucky they are,_ Grey thought, a scowl on his face before he relented. _No, this is exactly how they should be acting, they just survived a fucking_ Hell Storm _for shit's sakes! I can't even believe we just did that. I should ease off on them, they didn't do anything more or less than I should have expected of them in this situation._

Taking a deep breath Grey steadied his hands and got to work on Pinkie Pie, cleaning the wound, which had all but stopped bleeding at this point, and he began to work on trying to keep the pale and limp form of the teenage girl alive, at least for the moment, as the girls in the hallway of the bus slowly came to, and checked over their injuries.

 **Finally got this chapter done! For those of you who didn't know, I've had this chapter in production for almost as long as the seventh one. This is super action packed, but of course, if you're reading this, then you must have finished reading the chapter by now. I hope you liked it in that case! Also, please feel free to let me know what you think of it. Too much too fast? Or was the shock of this chapter a refreshing twist to the relatively slower pace of the rest of the story so far?**

 **P.S. Look for the next chapter to have some new characters and new locations, and you'll learn a bit more about the Wastelands and Grey's life.**


End file.
